the Nile. Indeed, I hope I may be pardoned a burst of national feeling, and be allowed to say, without meaning any disrespect to any other country, that I would rather travel under the name of an American, than under any other known in Europe. Every American abroad meets a general prepossession in favour of his country, and it is an agreeable truth that the impression made by our countrymen abroad, generally sustains the prepossession. I have met with some, however, who destroyed this good effect, and made themselves disagreeable and gave offence, by a habit of intruding their country and its institutions, and of drawing invidious comparisons, with a pertinacity and selfcomplacency I never saw in any other people. But to return to the dinner; a man may make a long digression before a dinner on paper, who would scorn such a thing before a dinner de facto. The party consisted of four, a gentleman and his lady, he an honourable and heir to an old and respectable title, a brother of the lady, an ex-captain in the guards, who changed his name and resigned his commission on receiving a fortune from an uncle, and another gentleman, I do not know whether of that family, but bearing one of the proudest names in England. They were all young, the oldest not more than thirty-five, and, not excepting the lady, full of thirst for adventure and travel. I say not excepting the lady; I should rather say that the lady was the life and soul of the party. She was young and beautiful, in the AN ENGLISH TRAVELLING LADY. 119 most attractive style of English beauty; she was married, and therefore dead in law; and as we may say what we will of the dead, I venture to say that she had shone as a beauty and a belle in the proudest circles of England, and was now enjoying more pleasure than Almack's or drawingrooms could give, rambling among ruins and sleeping under a tent on the banks of the Nile. They had travelled in Spain, had just come from Mount Sinai and the Red Sea, and they talked of Bagdad. I had often met on the Continent with Englishmen who "were out," as they called it, for a certain time, one year or two years, but this party had no fixed time; they "were out" for as long as suited their humour. To them I am indebted for the most interesting part of my journey in the East, for they first suggested to me the route by Petra and Arabia Petræa. We made a calculation by which we hoped, in reference to what each had to do, to meet at Cairo and make the attempt together. It was a great exertion of resolution that I did not abandon my own plans, and keep in company with them, but they had too much time for me; a month or two was no object to them, but to me a very great one. All this and much more, including the expression of a determination, when they had finished their travels in the Old World, to visit us in the New, took place, while we were dining under the tent of the captain and his friend. The table stood in the middle on canteens, about eight inches from the ground, with a mattress on each side for seats. It was rather awkward sitting, particularly for me, who was next the lady, and in that position felt some of the trammels of conventional life; there was no room to put my legs under the table, and, not anticipating the precise state of things, I had not arranged straps and suspenders, and my feet seemed to be bigger than ever. I doubled them under me; they got asleep, not the quiet and tranquil sleep which makes you forget existence, but the slumber of a troubled conscience, pricking and burning, till human nature could endure it no longer, and I kicked out the offending members with very little regard to elegance of attitude. The ice once broken, I felt at my ease, and the evening wore away too soon. An embargo had been laid upon my tongue so long, that my ears fairly tingled with pleasure at hearing myself talk. It was, in fact, a glorious evening; a bright spot that I love to look back upon, more than indemnifying me for weeks of loneliness. I sat with them till a late hour; and when I parted, I did not feel as if it was the first time I had seen them, or think it would be the last, expecting to meet them a few days afterward at the Cataracts. But I never saw them again; we passed each other on the river during the night. I received several messages from them; and at Beyrout, after I had finished my tour in Arabia Petræa and the Holy Land, I received a letter from them, still on the Nile. I should be extremely sorry to think that we are never to meet again, and hope that when wearied with rambling among the ruins of the Old World, they will execute their purpose of visiting America, and that here we may talk over our meeting on the banks of the Nile. I went back to my boat to greater loneliness than before, but there was a fine wind, and in a few minutes we were again under way. I sat on deck till a late hour, smoked two or three pipes, and retired to my little cabin. VOL. I.-L CHAPTER VII. The Rock of the Chain.-Ravages of the Plague.-Deserted THE next day and the next still brought us favourable winds and strong, and we were obliged to take down one of our tall latteens, but made great progress with the other, even against the rapid current of the river. The Nile here was very wide, the water turbulent, and the waves rolling with such violence that Paul became seasick; and, if it had not been for the distant banks, we could hardly have believed ourselves on the bosom of a river, one thousand miles from the ocean. In the evening we were approaching Hadjar Silsily, the Rock of the Chain, the narrowest part of the river, where the mountains of Africa and Arabia seem marching to meet each other, and stopping merely to leave a narrow passage for the river. Tradition says that in ancient days an iron chain was drawn across the narrow strait, which checked the current; and the Arab boatman believes he can still see, in the sides of the moun 1 |