are a sight in themselves, and are indeed a luxury to the traveling sportsman, both for sport and the table.

The Nile is bordered by cities, of which Cairo is chief, containing a population of about three hundred thousand; by towns, of which Osioot is the largest, with some

We frequently observed the use of crooked sticks for plows, and the camel was sometimes seen yoked with the cow, pulling the crude plowshare. The "shadoof" and the "sakia" are yet quite as crude implements of toil. They are used to elevate the river water for purposes of irrigation.

quent small villages, containing from one hundred to a thousand people.

The habitations of the latter are simply rude huts, built of mud and straw bricks, and surmounted by a mud tower, which bristles with pigeon-roosts, and within which are the nests. Thus lives the pigeon with the Arab, as the ass with the Syrian, or the goat with the Swiss. The villages are located on high ground, and are sheltered by palm groves, and, during an unusual rise of the river, a rough dike is thrown up to fence off the water.

As a people, the Arabs may be called dirty; they sleep with their mats on the ground, indoors or out, in the midst of the fleas and other insects; and so strong is the power of tradition or caste, that it will be long before the more civilizing European customs can prevail; and, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts which the present Viceroy is making to elevate his people, many seasons will yet show to the traveler the same Arab village, with its gray-headed sheik, its indolent men, coy women, and naked young beggars.

pole, with leathern basket attached, hung upon a crotched stick, and counterbalanced by a weight of mud, and is worked by hand. The sakia is a clumsy gear, with wooden pins for cogs, and turned by camels, donkeys, or buffalo cows, walking around with the long lever. The large wheel winds up an endless succession of earthen pots tied to a rope, which empty perhaps half their contents into the trough which conducts the water to the dry fields, the other half being wasted in the uncertain ascent. Still another mode obtains, even more crude than either of these. Two men, swinging a basket between them, toss up the water from one ditch to another until it is thrown to the top of the bank. It seems incomprehensible that such crude contrivances can be employed in these days, and in a country so fertile, and withal so convenient to the great markets of the world-in the very land, where, it is said, thousands of years ago, the wise Archimedes invented his memorable screw.

Not far from Kom Ombos we pass the great sandstone quarries of Silsileh, from

Radishes.

which tier upon tier has been quarried down in terraces, back from the shore, along which the quarries stretch for miles-significant indeed of the extent of building and the populations of those earlier times.

Thebes, February 22, 18-. Soup. Fish.

Olives.

Roast Mutton.

Some miles further on, we approach the magnificent temple of Edfou. This ruin, formerly called Apollinopolis, the handsomeest and most perfect now seen in Egypt, was constructed 160 B. C., in the reign of Philometor, the seventh of the Ptolemies, whose beneficent line governed the country from the death of Alexander to the conquest of Cæsar-300 to 30 B. C.

Still onward to the temple of Esneh, the Catopolis of the ancients, now nearly covered up by the accumulating dirt of the literally "growing" town; so much so, that the modern village is nearly on a level with the roof of the temple. The accumulations of sand and filth have, however, been removed from the ruin; and descending, we walk through the dingy, yet noble old colonnaded hall, lighted with only a faint glimmer of sun from above. With the aid of torches, which are rapidly smoking up some of the most interesting frescoes and sculptures of all the ruins, we are enabled to distinguish much of the original coloring upon the bas-reliefs of the columns and walls.

Esneh is notorious as the head-quarters of the "dancing girls of the Mamalukes," who were banished by Mohammed Ali from Cairo. They are hoydenish, bold-mannered, yet pretty girls; whose dancing is varied to the taste of the audience. In the neighborhood lies the fair temple of Cleopatra, at Erment, the ancient Hermonthis. Upon its outer walls is to be seen the famous large outline relief of the beautiful queen, cut in the old angular perspective, appropriate shrine for the fair Ghawazee maidens of Esneh!

THEBES, February 20.

Now drifting in seasons of calm, now spurting under the impulse of the oars, now blown along with favoring winds, we are borne in due time to the great shrine of Thebes. And here-130 miles from the cataract, and 450 from Cairo-we do homage to Washington's birthday; which, being also the birthday of one of our party, is made the occasion of a grand dinner and evening carnival.

Invitations are extended to friends, who arrive in a neighboring boat, and we dine in a princely manner. Illustrative of our mode of life and this day's feasting is but little better than our usual living-I give the items of our "bill of fare:"

Boned Goose and Duck.

Boiled Capon.

Vegetables (canned and fresh).

Pigeons with Salad.

Cabinet Pudding.

Preserves.

Méringue.

Oranges. Nuts and Figs.

Wines.

Cigars.

Coffee.

The dragoman, with whom a contract is made, by the day or for the round trip, is supposed to provide every possible comfort, with the exception of wines and similar extras. Of the latter, we have laid in a capital stock, and are quite prepared to entertain hospitably; for our Tadros has proved most generous in provisioning, and fortunate in his selection of cook.

Our dahabeih cabin seeming rather cramped, we extemporize a gala table beneath the awning upon the hurricane deck, where we toast the sun as he retires in good season into the broad bed of the Lybian plain; we toast the stars too, as they timidly come to look after the sun. Later, our masts are festooned with banners, Chinese lanterns and chemical lights, as are numerous other dahabeihs; and the whole scene is rendered more weirdly beautiful by the brilliant moon rising full over the low horizon of sandy desert. Later, the sailors sing us a serenade chorus; and as the cool air grows chiller and our guests are departing, we drink to our glorious home in the West.

The Nile Valley varies from less than a mile to a dozen miles in width. At Thebes it spreads out into a broad and fertile plain; and here was an early, and probably the most powerful of all the capital seats, and even now most of the ruins are clustered here.

Most famous of these are the temples of Karnak and Luxor on the east side of the river, and the twin statues of Memnon, the temples of Medinet-Abou, and the Memnonium, with its colossal granite statue of Rameses, upon the western plain.

The great statues of Memnon sit upon the plain with their backs to the western hills, and facing the river

Grand monuments, requiring each a single sandstone, forty-eight feet high and eighteen feet square, from which to be chiseled!

To the north of these lies the crumbled old palace and temple of Rameses MeiAmmon, the celebrated Sesostris (1440 B. C.),

the grand temples of Karnak and Luxor, the vocal Memnon, and this Memnonium of which we speak, before which arose the greatest statue known in history. It was of the same size and posture as the statues of Memnon, but of granite; but it suffered, alas! the especial wrath of the conqueror Cambyses (521 B. C.), and now lies lowly and broken.

At the other end of the plain, to the southward, lies Medinet-Abou, the palace and temple of Rameses III, 1270 B. C., probably a grandson or great-grandson of the great Sesostris.

In the hills back of Medinet-Abou are the mummy-pits, where the corpses are packed in like herrings; and we hasten to visit them.

We enter the black cavern and look down the preliminary pit-hole, only to shrink back affrighted; but we must carry home a small bit of a mummy. So we clamber down the

tense, and the stench appalling. With a grab at a few relics we hasten forth to the pure light of day, and, as we assort our specimens, we recall the words of Hamlet:

"To what base uses we may return, Horatio!"

Still further, over the hills in which are the mummy-pits is a crater-like valley, walled round with precipitous cliffs, in the bases of which are the square, yawning black mouths which lead down into the "Tombs of the Kings."

We descend, bearing torches, down the square spacious hall, which is flanked by occasional small chambers, the walls of which are ornamented with frescoes, as fresh as though lately painted, crudely detailing the histories of these royal lines.

Soon we come to a large architectural grotto; then on, down another incline until we arrive at the spacious apartment in which rested the sarcophagus. We explore several

surrounded by fresher palm groves, and its mud bricks are squared, and its window lattices repaired. The houses are oftener two-story mansions, with separate stabling for pigeons; and there is a suggestion of trade in its market-place, where a pair of tall ostriches stalk at their will.

Another night's rowing to the measure of the Arab sailor's hymn, and early morning finds us under the lee of a bank upon which we are to see the famous Sheik Selim, the saint. Reminding one of the Syrian Stylites or the Indian Pranporee, this old man sits by the side of the Nile, where he is said to have sat for a number of years, extending beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant -naked, and only occasionally warmed by a fire. When the Nile rises, he drags his bent and stiffened body further up the bank; and the natives have a superstition that when he waves his long arm the river begins to fall. Here, year after year, fed by the faithful, he prays on, a mummy before his time.

Near Maabdeh are the celebrated crocodile pits, within whose fatal caverns several explorers have met their death by suffocation. Here, in stifling subterranean recesses, are laid away these mummied gods-the crocodiles, corded up like great wood piles, with only an occasional native interspersed to attend them at their future arising. After a dangerous excursion into this noisome cemetery, one of our friends came back with an armful of legs, eggs, teeth, and crocodiles, the latter consisting of small bundles of infant crocodiles swaddled in mummy cloth.

A day's sail further on are the tombs of E'dayr and Antinoë, upon whose walls may be seen the most noted of all the mural paintings, illustrating the removal of massive bodies of stone. It presents the idea of a roadway upon which is a sledge laden with a colossus, which is being drawn by some two hundred men. As a measure of the size of the statue, an Egyptian standing upon the knee of the giant, directing its removal, reaches scarcely up to the statue's massive chest. We ride back from the barren hills of the desert, in which are situated these tombs, through great fields of beans, maize, and sugar-cane, which, with wheat and cotton and the invaluable palm-tree, supplying, as it does, shelter, raiment, ropes, matting, and dates for food, constitute the principal products of the country.

We are scarcely seated upon the deck of our boat, regarding the luxuriant vegetation and enjoying a balmy siesta, when we

see a picturesque group of maidens coming down to the river for water, bearing their empty jars in their hands. They seem excessively modest, for we scarcely obtain more recognition than a few timid side glances, before they troop off demurely erect, with their water jars jauntily perched on their heads.

The famous tombs of Beni-Hassan next demand inspection. Their principal interest lies in a series of frescoes illustrating the history of the era of Memphite predominance. From the histories one may read from them it would seem that the twentieth century before Christ was only slightly to be contrasted with this the twentieth century after, in the habits and customs of human kind.

Minieh, one hundred and sixty miles south of Cairo, is the present terminus of the railway; and here are situated the largest of the half dozen sugar refineries of the Viceroy. These produce him large revenues, greatly enhanced by the almost gratuitous work of his subjects. They are supervised by European skilled labor, and are worked by European machinery.