Damanhour—Kafr-Zayad, or a Refreshment Stall in the Desert-There they are! Here we are!

By a happy chance, and without the intervention of the Viceroy, the train started. We rolled along, packed into so-called first-class carriages-which were like old boxes, fitted up with mirrors and fixtures equally modern and ridiculous-to Damanhour, the first station which relieved us from our situation as human packages, for which the administration would most decidedly decline to be responsible. This was the first Egyptian village which met our view, offering us all the conditions requisite for painters of the East. The houses, built of earth or dried bricks, were clustered together without any regularity, making it impossible to fix where the landscape commenced or the village ended, so uniformly grey is the colouring. A graceful minaret rose like an apparition out of this series of little boxes. Some tufts

of palms swayed mournfully above this village, which at the first glance might be taken for a cemetery. The time of day also contributed to the funereal aspect of a town in ruins, for all the inhabitants are invariably asleep during the great heat. Only a few women braved the burning sunshine, and came to the carriage doors to sell the products of their industry and sundry refreshments of the most primitive kind. In this country oranges, fresh eggs, araki, and camel's milk, replace the traditional orgeat, lemonade, and beer, and were in great demand in the fourth and fifth-class carriages, in which the ruminant population, camels and camel-drivers, are pitilessly packed in layers.

At Kafr-Zayad we found something much more comfortable, and also much more expensive; but the place, from the point of view of the picturesque, was far less interesting than Damanhour.

A whistle, almost European in its prolonged shrillness, started us off again, and the aspect of the country changing rapidly, we felt that we were getting into the heart of Egypt, into the cultivated lands which form its inexhaustible wealth. It was at the epoch when the grain is green, and it had a singular effect upon us to cross these great steppes of herbage, which we had not believed could exist out of Holland.

A WINGED ESCORT.

13

White herons, looking in the distance like pieces of paper strewn about at random, formed an odd sort of interruption to the general tone of this agricultural fertility.

Very few palm-trees, innumerable irrigation works, and an horizon invariably green! it was quite irritating; but the soul of one of our party, who came from Utrecht, seemed to expand, to delight in the presence of all this grass, unrelieved by so much as a poppy. Our attention was, however, happily diverted by the infinite variety of birds which seemed to accompany the train. Ducks, hawks, and eagles, succeeded each other without interruption, and seemed to have established a line of travel of their own parallel to ours. The countless little watercourses which intersect these lands are covered with birds of every description, and innumerable animals of various kinds, who seem to live together on the best possible terms, notwithstanding the difference in their size and habits. Beautiful little sac-sacs (lapwings) fly about like butterflies, while enormous cranes pull the feathers out of their own necks with slow patience. The dromedaries and buffaloes which constantly meet each other on the road parallel to the railway, look on tranquilly as the trains pass, with the impassible

serenity of Normandy cows, not to be disturbed by steam, whistles, or engines. We had wisely mistrusted the commissariat department, and were devouring some slices of cold veal which we had brought from the hotel Abat, when a cry of admiration escaped simultaneously from our mouths. They were full, but the exclamation was none the less sincere.There they are! There they are!' 'Who? What?' eagerly asked our famished fellow-travellers, who were looking at the cold veal-as though they expected to see it smoke under the burning sunso stedfastly that they had perceived nothing. ‘The Pyramids, of course!' replied ourdear master, in the tone of a man to whom they were very old acquaintances, and who was about to please them very much by a visit. Sure enough, there were the Pyramids, standing out from the horizon, against a background of flecked sky, for the day was beginning to decline. Such was our first sight of those three stone giants, which seemed to make us doubt the possibility of the world ever coming to an end. Seen from the railroad, Cairo resembles a forest of minarets and cupolas, and any description of it must necessarily be incomplete. But we were going thither! We were there! We are there!

A TRANCE IN ACTION.

15

SKETCH IV.

CAIRO.

A Week at Cairo-Bewilderment-The Streets-The Bazaars-The Mouski-Old Cairo-The Valley of Tombs-The Mosques.

ON ass-back, gentlemen, on ass-back!'

And, just as in a Japanese dream, we were all on ass-back before we had time to know why; and then, still in the opium trance, without either the power or the will to offer any resistance, we were carried away at full speed, whither, only Adha Anna, our temporary dragoman, knew! Flung, as it were, into a human whirlpool, we had hardly any consciousness of our fantastic situation. A truly infernal uproar made it utterly impossible for us to call, or to hear each other, as our little party rushed onward in a kind of frantic race, in which a laggard was in the plight of a man overboard.

Chmâlak! Yeminak! Reglak! shouted our donkey-boys, delighted with our amazement and our fears, and anxious to secure our custom by accelera