When we tried to see any mosque, we were always pooh-poohed by our dragoman, who had evidently a Mussulman's prejudice against admitting unbelievers into the holy places. And when at last we prevailed upon him to take us, we were invariably surrounded by a crowd, whom he could with difficulty keep off. There is a profound feeling of jealousy at the bottom of all this. Without understanding what was said by the mob at our heels, we read plainly enough in their faces. "Why are these women here ? What right have they to trouble themselves about our places of worship ?" The few mosques that I did see at Cairo, out of hundreds, impressed me greatly, especially that of Ezher. This is the College of Cairo. It is not remarkable for beauty of architecture, but for vast courts which swarm all day long with zealous students of the Koran. These crowds form a curious spectacle. The master sits on a stool, or stands in the midst, surrounded by a group of men and boys squatted on the ground, some conning pages of the Koran, others reciting passages in a loud voice, all absorbed and eager. When we entered, the great court was like a field of red and white poppies with hundreds of turbaned heads bending backwards and forwards in a kind of studious ecstasy, whilst the mingled voices made a surging, continuous sound, deafening to unaccustomed ears.

Bewildered and stunned, elbowed by a little crowd of inquisitive idlers, which every moment threatened to cut us off from our dragoman and cawass, we pushed slow way through the dense masses. To stay longer for purposes of inquiry or inspection was impossible.

The Mohammedans, without a doubt, act up to the five articles of their faithprayer, fasting, ablution, pilgrimage, and resignation. No one who has spent the month of Rhamadan in the East can discredit the sincerity of the great fast, nor can any one who has fallen in, as we did later, with a crowd of home-returning pilgrims, discredit the annual pilgrimage to Mecca; whilst the most hasty traveler has daily proof of the ablutions, prayers, and resignation which are carried out according to the Prophet's injunctions.

The mosques at Cairo are worthy of a religious people. Simple and grand in design, exquisite in detail, they leave be

hind a clear and ineffaceable impression of beauty. Moorish art has, moreover, that delicious quality of playfulness, that spontaneous childlike freshness and happiness, ever the characteristics of true art. You can not add or take away from the outpouring of genius which does not do its best or its worst, but simply its own bidding.

LETTER II.

A PICNIC to the Pyramids is now the easiest thing in the world. You drive in a carriage and pair, taking champagne and cold chicken with you, over which Herodotus and hieroglyphics are gaily discussed; and when the heat of the day is abated, you return to Cairo with as little fatigue as if you had ruralized at Epping Forest.

Of course there are more ways than one of seeing these marvels, and, for my part, if I ever go to Egypt again, I shall try to follow the advice of a sea-captain who traveled with us from Cairo to Alexandria. "The only way to see the Pyramids," he said, "is to go there by moonlight, spend the night on the top, see the sun rise, and get clean away before a single Bedouin is lying in wait for his prey. This is what I did, and I had my reward. A more splendid sight can not be conceived, and I saw it in peace."

These Pyramid Bedouins are the pest of travelers. People are often deterred from visiting the Pyramids a second time on account of the bullying and impositions to which they have been once subjected. What can two or three helpless ladies and gentlemen do against a crowd of wild, powerful, screeching, gesticulating creatures who surround them in these interminable solitudes? They have but to yield, which means giving as much bakshish as will moderate their enemies.

Now, we were saved all these miseries by the kind forethought of our consul, who insisted upon sending his cawass, or janissary, with us, much to the disgust of our dragoman. He, of course, though a good fellow in the main, looked for his own share of the tolls that the Bedouins

should levy upon us. But the consul was firm, and the dragoman was forced to yield.

By four o'clock we were up and stirring, and a little before seven we started, the consul's janissary mounted on the box

money, history and sculpture tell us. They tell us, also, something of their pristine splendor, for, choked with sand, ravished of the polished marble that encased the ruder framework, and reduced in number, the Pyramids of to-day give a very inadequate idea of the Pyramids of old, "the desolate places of kings and counselors." How many of these "desolate places" have perished altogether it is impossible to say, but, doubtless, few remain "of the many Pyramids, the sepulchres of kings," which were once clustered together on the edge of the desert. It is supposed, however, by learned authorities, that the Pyramids were built not only to serve the purpose of tombs, but also for astronomical observation; they stand exactly due north and south, and whilst the direction of the faces east and west might serve to fix the return of a certain period of the year, the shadow cast by the sun at the time of its coinciding with their slope, might be observed for a similar purpose. Herodotus describes the manner of their construction very clearly, and he speaks of the blocks of polished stone brought from Arabian quarries. This was the magnesian limestone from the hills of El Mokuttum, which is still quarried by the modern Egyptians, and which was polished for casing the Pyramids. We must, indeed, divest ourselves of the idea that the Pyramid before us is at all like the marvels seen and described by Herodotus. Stripped of its splendid covering, half its height lost in the accumulated sands of centuries, what must the stupendous structure of Cheops have been in its pristine glory? Then, as has been calculated by the author of Nozrani in Egypt and Syria, it covered an area fifty feet each way larger than that of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and rose to twice the height of St. Peter's at Rome! Now, owing to the encroachments of sand, its present base is 732 feet, according to Sir F. G. Wilkinson's measurements, and its perpendicular height 480 feet. Every vestige of the marble coating has disapear ed. The subterranean chambers were pillaged long ago, and every available inch of surface is covered with names of travelers, evidently craving immortal fame as much as Cheops and Cephren.

Still nothing can be more impressive than these Titans of the desert, which have indeed a similitude to fallen gods in their stately solitude and sombre majesty.

Will they last as long as the world itself, or will some revolutionary age lay its ruthless hand upon them, and they become traditional as the Tower of Babel? Who shall tell us? Not even the Sphynx, before whose mysterious smile we stand, awed and stirred to a feeling of strangest curiosity. We forget for a time that the sun is making our brains throb. We forget the Pyramids and all else, past and present, in our contemplation of this sublime, unreadable face. The mutilation of the features has done little to impair the weird, petrifying, superhuman expression of the whole physiognomy. Perhaps the calm of perfect repose predominates, yet it is hard to say, since you feel at the same time in the presence of an inscrutable, riddle-reading wisdom, before which your own life with all its secrets might be read as a child's story-book. Surely this must have been since the world began, and is no creation of human hands; we can not help thinking so in the first moments of fascination and bewilderment. We are fain to gaze for hours, were it not for the burning sun of this April afternoon. The outlined figure, in color grayish, bluish, yellowish, rising out of the sands, has an eerie majesty of its own that holds you like a spell. But the sun drives us away with its scorching, racking beams; we stagger across the sands, almost blinded by the glare, to the entrance of the mummy pits, where we descend, finding coolness and shadow, and the companionship of lovely little blue and black beetles flashing in the white sands.

We got back to our carriage almost fainting with the heat, and just in time to see a wretched party of travelers pounced upon by the enemy. A more striking contrast than our own security with their helplessness can not be conceived-not, as the Roman poet says, it is a pleasure that any should be afflicted, but because it is sweet to see from what evils you are yourself exempt. Any thing more dejected than the faces of these unhappy victims, as they were driven about by their tormentors, I hardly remember to have seen. And I fear that the little excursion, which cost us no more than a couple of sovereigns, mulcted them to a serious extent.

We drive home in the reviving coolness of the evening. All the pictures of the morning have now a new and no less enchanting harmony; and as we look back at the Pyramids, in the mellow effulgence

of sunset, they seem hardly realities indeed, but fairy peaks of amethyst far off, and mysterious as the golden city, with its twelve gates of pearl, seen by the Apocalyptic visionary.

LETTER III.

To Heliopolis from Cairo is a lovely drive of two hours over a splendid road, bordered for the most part with gardens. There were pomegranate trees in rich red flower, orange and lemon trees, tamarisk, olive, castor-oil, rose, and acacia, with wellknown flowers, such as the African marigold and larkspur, in great plenty. Farther off were patches of golden dourra, and in their midst little clusters of palm and olive, oases of green amid yellow deserts.

We were driven by a friend in an English dog-cart, drawn by a pair of beautiful little Syrian horses; and very exhilarating it was to speed so easily through the soft perfumed air. When we had left Cairo at 3 o'clock P.M., it was 83° in the shade! We came in sight of a noble obelisk of granite -all that now remains of the once glorious seat of learning and of free thought, whither Plato went four hundred years before the Christian era to study "the wisdom of the Egyptians."

We alight and walk across a field amid groups of Bedouins, with their donkeys old and young, camels, large beautiful oxen, dogs, and sheep. Little half-naked children followed us, crying " Bakshish." The statuesque men and women gazed, without a word. In this picturesque scene we linger long around the solitary relic of the famous Temple of the Sun. There is something that takes strange hold of the fancy in an obelisk, especially when it stands, like this one, under the canopy of a burning southern sky, and on the level line of desert. It is so massive and yet so airy, and so strangely contrasted in form to its surroundings, that the mind is affect ed as by certain caprices of nature, and it is here seen to especial advantage. The eye rests upon the chief point of the picture undisturbed by any overcrowding, and the exquisite proportions gain a thousand-fold by this isolation. Indeed, to build obelisks in cities and small hilly countries is altogether a mistake. They should stand in wide plains, like lighthouses in the sea.

The wasps have made curious incroachments upon the sides of the monument,

Some

which are covered with their nests. of the hieroglyphics still remain; they bear the name of Orsitasen the First, who is supposed to have been the Pharaoh of Joseph. Now the ancient name of Heliopolis was in hieroglyphics the Abode of the Sun, Ei-re; in Coptic, On; and variously called Aven in Ezekiel and Bethshemish in Jeremiah. "He shall break also the images of Bethshemish (the House of the Sun) that is in the land of Egypt;" and in Genesis, Joseph is said to have married a daughter of the Priest of On. Here, in Strabo's time, was shown the house where Plato lived, when the philosopher himself became "a disciple of the old men of Egypt." This was in the fourth century before Christ, when Heliopolis was a celebrated seat of philosophy. The reputation of Heliopolis faded after the conquest of Egypt by Greece, when the Greek city of Alexandria took its place. The flocks and herds of the Bedouins now wander at will over the site of the once famous seat of learning. A little train of wild dark-skinned children, with their tame colts and kids, followed at our heels to the entrance of the gardens near, where tea was being prepared.

We sat down in a thicket of orange and pomegranate trees-glossy green leaf, scarlet blossom, and golden fruit within arm's reach. Soon enormous bouquets were brought by the gardener for each of the ladies, smelling of the delicate blossom of the lilac laburnum. We saw many black and lilac on the way, and its fragrance is not easily forgotten, nor its flower either.

The drive home was amid such a blaze of color that we might almost have fancied ourself caught up in the chariot of Phoebus Apollo and whirled through space in the wake of the sun-god. Never have I seen such a pageant as that Egyptian sunset; all the colors of the flowers in which we had just been reveling, orange, violet, crimson, seemed suddenly translated into myriads of jewels, which, rainbow tinted,. flashed and flamed for awhile, finally melting, like Cleopatra's pearl, in a sea of purple. Verily, we beheld "the pomp of Egypt" in that homeward drive from Heliopolis.

But we were to see something more of it before going away, and this was at the Pasha's museum, which all travelers will do well to see more than once, and leisurely; indeed, this rule holds good with every

thing worth seeing. I am sure it is a great mistake to spend much time and money in going far merely to get one glance of beautiful places and things.

I suppose there is no more fascinating collection of antiquities in the world than this delightful little museum contains. As you wander about, you are carried in spirit to the beautiful Biblical pastorals more than three thousand years old. Here is a handful of seed-corn that was perhaps garnered in the days when Joseph was ruler over all the land of Egypt. There a fragment of finespun linen that he might have worn when "he made ready his chariot and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him, and he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while." Who knows but that this timbrel was held by Miriam the prophetess, when she led out the women of Israel to celebrate the tyrant's overthrow? This basketful of silver money may have been the wages of Moses' nurse, paid by Pharaoh's daughter. What Egyptian queen has studied her beauty in that looking-glass of polished metal? Who last used the marble palette before us, old as the Pyramids, but still bright with the painter's colors? The mummies around us, men and women who perhaps knew all these things, are silent. Yet, as we gaze upon the painted masks, an expression seems to come over them almost as if they read our thoughts. We see their hands and feet protruding from the costly wrappings with a ghostly feeling of expectancy that in a moment the figure itself will shake off its bindings and discourse with us. But they do not stir. We move on, apparently followed by the stolid sphynx-like gaze.

This collection gives a very high idea of the art of the ancient Egyptians. Jewels, furniture, dress, and objects of worship, all bear traces of the same artistic and loving elaboration. Nothing seems ever Nothing seems ever to have been done in a hurry, or with any hampering consideration of cost. Some little domestic statues are lovely, such as a boy drawing olives out of the beautifullyshaped earthen jar common in Egypt to this day, touching figures of priests in the attitude of prayer, a man asleep, two women (evidently mother and daughter) standing side by side, a graceful and pathetic group, and many others.

Besides the works of art, furniture, and

mummies here collected are many other interesting objects, especially those connected with their gods and sacred animals.

Happy were the cats and crocodiles in the days of ancient Egypt. If a cat died, the family of its master shaved the eyebrows as a sign of mourning; and it was embalmed like a king. The crocodile of Thebes was waited upon during its lifetime with the utmost care; various meats were expressly dressed for it, its head and feet were ornamented with chains and jewels; like a cat, it shared the honors of mummydom with "the kings and counselors of the earth."

LETTER IV.

In the first days of May we were again at sea-like the Roman poet, overwhelmed with the feeling that at last indeed we found ourselves on the way to Athens. Magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas, sang Propertius, bound thither in order to cure the smart of a certain love affair, which caused a severe wound, though it did not break his heart. Was it possible that we should soon climb the Acropolis and rest on the broken walls of the Parthenon? It seemed too good to be true!

Very pleasant it was, moreover, to feel that we were fairly out of Egypt. The weather was delicious-warm, fresh, and glowing, with just enough breeze to speed our sails, and nothing more. Our vessel-an Austrian Lloyd-was packed as closely as a box of figs with pilgrims returning from Mecca, who afforded us, with the rest of the crew, plenty of amusement during the first uneventful day or two whilst we were yet in the Mediterranean.

To begin with the quarter-deck. We have first of all a learned Turkish judge bound to Constantinople with his harem, and what with his wives, slaves, and chil dren and miscellaneous attendants, I was reminded of a riddle that used to puzzle me in my childhood, about " a man with seven wives" who was "going to St. Ives." The judge himself was a very ugly old man, wearing baggy white flannel trousers, a short petticoat or skirt of gay Persian stuff, and over his shoulders a jacket bordered with fur. His ladies were even more unprepossessing in appearance than himself, ungainly creatures of all ages and sizes, dressed in sack-like garments of dingy white linen over a petticoat of hide