this brilliant horizon, and by the last gleams of parting day, we saw, foaming like waves of molten silver, the waters breaking over the chain of rocks that enclose the port. It would have been imprudent to risk the entrance into the road, and the probabilities were a hundred to one that, not sharing our impatience, none of the pilots would venture out to our vessel during the night.

It was consequently necessary to remain patiently until the next day; I know not what my companions did, but for my part, I did not sleep a single minute. Two or three times during the night I went upon deck, hoping to see something by the aid of the stars; but not a single light was kindled on the shore, not a sound reached us from the city; I might have believed myself a hundred leagues from land.

At length day appeared. A yellowish mist covered the entire coast, which could only be recognised by a long line of dense vapours. Nevertheless we steered towards the haven, and, by degrees, the veil which covered this mysterious Isis, without being raised, became less thick, and allowed us, as through a gauze growing gradually more transparent, to recover once more the prospect of the preceding evening.

We were not a hundred paces from the breakers, when at length our pilot appeared. He approached

in a four-oared barge, having two immense eyes painted on its prow, as if to discover the most secret dangers of the sea.

He was the first Turk I had seen, for I did not regard as true Turks, the date-merchants I had met on the Boulevards; nor the envoys of the Sublime Porte, whom I had occasionally met at places of public resort. Consequently I regarded the approach of this worthy Mussulman, with the natural curiosity of a traveller, who, wearied of the men and things he had seen, and who, having come two hundred leagues to see new men and things, fastens himself to the picturesque as soon as he meets it, and claps his hands for having at length found the strange and the unknown which he had come from such a distance to see.

The stranger was a worthy son of the prophet, having a long beard; a splendid and flowing dress; a demeanour slow, grave, and reflective; and he was attended by slaves, to fill his pipe and carry his tobacco. When he reached our ship, he mounted the ladder with great gravity, saluted the captain whom he recognised by his uniform, crossing his hands on his breast, and went to take his place at the helm, which was resigned to him by our pilot. As I followed I never took my eyes off him; at the end of a few minutes, I saw his figure contract, as if he had got something in his throat which he could

not swallow; finally, after unparalleled efforts, he contrived to utter the words, "To the right!" It was time that he got them out; an instant more and they would have choked him. After a short pause, he was seized by a second paroxysm, but this time it was for the words, "To the left." These were the only words of our language he could pronounce; his philological education it appears was limited to what was strictly necessary.

This restricted vocabulary however sufficed to bring us to an excellent anchorage. Baron Taylor, Captain Bellanger, Mayer, and I, jumped into the boat, and from the boat to the shore. It would be impossible for me to describe what I felt when I touched the land, but I had not time to scrutinize my sensations; an unexpected event roused me from my ecstacy.

At the very port, ass-drivers wait for travellers, like the hackney-coaches and cabriolets on the stands of Paris. They are in every spot where one can put foot to ground; at the square tower, Pompey's column, and Cleopatra's needle. But it must be confessed that they surpass our coachmen and cads in foresight and tenacity. Before I well knew where I was, I was seized, lifted, placed astride on a donkey, whipped off the beast, hurried on another, tumbled from that on the sand, amid shouts and blows exchanged so rapidly that I had not time to offer the

least resistance. I profited by the moment of respite which the battle over my carcass afforded, to look round me, and I perceived Mayer in a position still more critical than mine; in fact, he was fairly taken prisoner, and in spite of his cries, hurried off at a gallop by the donkey and its driver. I ran to his aid, and succeeded in rescuing him from the Philistine; we hurried into the nearest lane to hide our selves from this eleventh plague of Egypt, but we were soon rejoined by our tormentors, who having mounted their quadrupeds had over us the advantages of cavalry over infantry. I do not know how matters would have ended this time, if some good Moslems, recognising us as Franks by our dress, had not taken pity on us, and, without saying a word, or even warning us by gesture of their good intententions, come to our rescue, and put our officious assailants to flight with heavy blows of hippopotamus' thongs*.

We then made our way into the city; but we had not proceeded a hundred paces, when we found that

The Arabs and Turks beat the unfortunate fellahs with a heavy whip, made from the hide of the hippopotamus; this instrument of punishment as we see by the monuments was used in the days of the Pharaohs; it is the only inheritance the native Egyptians have derived from their illustrious ancestors, and their rulers seem resolved that they should enjoy it in perfection.

we had been imprudent in refusing our steeds; donkeys are the vehicles of this country, and it is almost impossible to dispense with them in the midst of the mud. It is necessary to water the streets five or six times every day, on account of the heat. This measure of police is intrusted to the fellahs, who go about with a leathern bag under each arm; they press these alternately to force out the water, accompanying the alternate squeeze with a double Arabic phrase, which they pronounce in a monotonous voice: "Have a care to the right-Have a care to the left!" Thanks to this system of portable irrigation, which gives these fine fellows the appearance of Highland pipers, the sand and water form a kind of Roman cement, from which asses, horses, and dromedaries can alone extricate themselves with honour; Christians in some degree protect themselves by boots, but the Arabs leave their slippers behind them.

Still we were only at the beginning of our mishaps; turning out of the dirty narrow street in which we were entangled, we tumbled into the middle of an infected bazaar. It was one of those mephitic spots into which the plague comes regularly once or twice a year for a fresh supply of putrid miasmata, which it then spreads through the city; but in spite of our haste to traverse so dangerous a place, it presented such an aggregation of packages, donkeys, merchants,