tombs of the sacred bulls. These seen, | beauty and strangeness. We may go to the we hasten over the last twenty miles of our trip. A dangerous gust of wind recalls to our minds the point called Gebel TookhAboofeyda, near to Girgeh, where the winds rise frequently into whirlwinds, as the storms blow around the precipitous cliffs and strike fear to the hearts of the not too courageous Arabian sailors. Yet our crew seem to fight with changeable winds like true muscular seamen. They are good-natured fellows, ready to run of an errand or after our game, or to bear us ashore on their great brawny backs. The crew consists of twelve-a captain, steersman, eight sailors, cook, and waiter. And there is our dragoman and a bright little Nubian boy, always at our elbow to fetch us a book or an orange as we lie in our ship chairs upon deck. The sailors coil up in a rough sack on the deck to sleep, and are up at the slightest call to their duty to shift the lateens, or to jump into the stream and lift off the boat from some treacherous sand-bar. Their food consists of coarse flour baked with water, which is then crumbled and dried in the sun, afterward boiled and mixed with beans or lentils. The sailors sit around the kettle-pot and partake of this in the most primitive fashion, each dipping the first two fingers of the right hand into the pot. An occasional contribution of a sheep is received by them with great manifestation of gratitude; and their happiness seems completed by a few piastres for the purchase of some onions and sugar-cane. Favorable winds give light labor to our sailors, and they recompense us amply with singing and dancing and ludicrous attempts at impromptu theatricals-chiefly burlesques of a king, who, perhaps, is ultimately poisoned or assassinated amid the applause and laughter of the whole stock company, king and all. And thus, with daily some newly discovered enjoyment, an hour's hunting, a ludicrous donkey race or excursion ashore, a quaint vein of native humor, or perhaps some touching poem of sorrow caught in passing; impressive ruin, picturesque landscape, or rare sunset, "our slow drift moves onward," until we may hail once again the distant Cairo, with its delicate minarets, and the cupola of the citadel mosque of Mohammed rising up like the wonderful dome of St. Peter's. Once more we may roam through the quaint streets and entertaining bazaars of "old Cairo," re-enjoying their objects of great crumbling Mosque of Hassan, called after the Sultan who built it, or drive out again to the tombs of the Mamalukes, fast turning into the desert from which they arise in their grimness, or revisit the obelisk CAIRO, March 15. We are glad to be once again in our quiet and immovable rooms at Shepherd's Hotel, and we partake with relish of the busy scenes of cosmopolitan life. We canter about gayly on the trim little donkeys, punched on by half naked little "fellahs." Here, shouting, comes the lithe carriage runner, who, bred to the business, can outrun the horses for hours, as he hurries along to make room for a Pasha, who lolls complaisantly back in his carriage as it rolls through the crowds that press back for its passage. There, walks a lady of Cairo, closely vailed, and attended by a toothless old woman, who watches her closely. And here goes a merchant prince, slipping awkwardly along on a richly caparisoned camel. And here is a waterman under our noses who pours us a drink for a "thank you;" and his friend, the street sprinkler, staggers hard by with an enormous load in a goat-skin, from which he scatters a crystalline shower upon the dusty highways. There, is the milk-cart of Cairo a mildfeatured nanny goat, who suffers herself to be led to your threshold, there to be milked by the gray-turbaned Arab, and thus gives you her best, undiluted. On every side is to be seen thus some primitive and homely custom; the very body-servant sleeps leaning against the door of the master's apartments; and the street HOWADJI'S ARRIVAL AT SHEPHERD'S HOTEL, CAIRO. (AFTER A PAINTING.) porters may be awakened in the early morning coiled up in their matting-sacks, their heads upon the door-steps. How primitive must be the habits of the beggars and donkey-boys! But here is the typical citizen-a smart, active Arab, who steps briskly and erect, with an air which would bespeak a proud and intelligent destiny in another land than this; but he is now but a bonded Egyptian, and he hurries along to his labor, while his daughter turns pensively from him, her sad face repressing a sorrow not rare in this Sphinx-land-this land of enslavement and bondage. It must not, however, be considered from this, that the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century fails to be felt in Egypt; for the general condition of these Egyptians is already very much ameliorated by the present sovereign, Ismail Pasha. He has promoted the original industries of the country, he has created new industries, and opened up new avenues and fields, with well-built railways and extensive canals; and, while ornamenting his large cities with useful and tasteful structures and parks, and while developing the material resources of the kingdom at large, raising it up to the standard of an independent and formidable power, he has not neglected the education and æsthetic culture of his subjects, but has steadfastly pursued a progressive policy. But we may not repose longer in this inter esting capital, for we fain would do homage to other great shrines of the Orient. So we tie up our traps for our journey to the Suez Canal; and, as we sit in our hotel windows awaiting the moment of departure, we enjoy a last tableau of Cairo. A long train of camels files by, each one attached to the tail of the one preceding. They march on erect beneath the large building stones with which they are laden. They look innocent, even sad; yet they are said to bristle with rage if provoked beyond measure. These have hardly passed when there follows a wedding procession. At the head pipes a piper upon a reed, which squeaks mightily; then two drummers supply with great volume what the reed lacks in sweetness. Now follow long lines of Arabs arm in arm across the highway; then the bridegroom, bestraddling a donkey. Throngs kiss his hands, and prophesy happiness. Now follow women; thickly vailed walks the bride between two bridesmaids, who support her, and seem to address her with much gesticulation, as if to tease her; but perhaps they are giving her lessons in marital matters. Four gayly decked boys bear a canopy over her head, and she moves with the air of a stage-queen. Behind these, with much talking and shouting, come the rabble; and the vile little donkey-boys, congregating in numbers before the hotel, when not besieging some easy-going excur sionist, take part in the merry procession by pushing the bright little donkeys among them. The beasts take the brunt of the beating with gentleness, but appear not to relish the fun. All aboard! we descend to our carriages, and are whirled off through the throngs of donkeys and camels; the peddlers, snake. charmers, tricksters, hawkers, and motley groups of travelers by the hotel, and soon are ensconced in the rail-car-that sad innovation upon Eastern romance. SUEZ CANAL, March 27. Seven hours' flight through fertile fields, and over the Syrian Desert, and we arrive at Ismailia, equidistant from Port Said and Suez, on Lake Timsah, a clean little town in the very desert, but bright with made gardens and flowers. It flourished during the building of the canal, but is now silent, though proud in the home of De Lesseps. The day following, our tug-boat moves through in the wake of a magnificent steamship, which meets with no obstruction whatever, to Port Said, where the French steamer lies waiting to bear us to Jaffa. With a glimpse at the town, and its harbor, made out into the sea with great walls of manufactured stone, we mount the tall sides of the steamer; the low, yellow desert sinks into the sea, and the glories of Egypt are lost to our sight. THE LAST OF THE NARWHALE. THE STORY OF AN ARCTIC NIP. "AY, AY, I'll tell you, shipmates, "A stouter ship was never launched Of all the Clyde-built whalers, And forty years of a life at sea Haven't matched her crowd of sailors. And used to the wildest seas, And the rugged Hebrides. Such men as women cling to, mates, Like ivy round their lives ; And the day we sailed, the quays were lined With weeping mothers and wives. They cried and prayed, and we gave 'em a cheer, In the thoughtless way o' men. "We sailed to the North, and I mind it well, When we sighted the cliffs of Labrador Like ghosts in the night, each moonlit peak Like a great war-frigate's mast, 'Twas said that a ship was frozen up In the iceberg's awful breast, The clear ice holding the sailor's face As he lay in his mortal rest. And I've thought since then, when the ships came home, That sailed for the Franklin band, A mistake was made in the reckoning That looked for the crews on land. 'They're floating still,' I've said to myself, 'And Sir John has found the goal; The Erebus and the Terror, mates, Are icebergs up at the Pole!' "We sailed due north, to Baffin's Bay, But a month dragged on like an afternoon The farther north we sailed: But thick as ships in Mersey's tide "Then came a rest: the day was blown In the south the sun went redly down- It seemed we sailed in a belt of gloom, The north wind smote the sea to death; The pack-ice closed us round The Narwhale stood in the level fields As fast as a ship aground. A weary time it was to wait, And to wish for spring to come, With the pleasant breeze and the blessed sun, To open the way toward home. "Spring came at last, the ice-fields groaned Like living things in pain; They moaned and swayed, then rent amain, And the Narwhale sailed again. With joy the dripping sails were loosed, To cheer the crew, full south she drew, The shattered floes among. We had no books in those old days To carry the friendly faces; But I think the wives and lasses then The face of sweetheart and wife to-day Is locked in the sailors' chest; But aloft on the yard, with the thought of home, The face in the heart was best. Well, well-God knows, mates, when and where To take the things He gave ; We steered for Home-but the chart was His, And the port ahead-the Grave! "We cleared the floes; through an open sea The Narwhale south'ard sailed, Till a day came round when the white fog rose, And the wind astern had failed. In front of the Greenland glacier line And close to its base were we; Through the misty pall we could see the wall That beetled above the sea. A fear like the fog crept over our hearts As we heard the hollow roar Of the deep sea thrashing the cliffs of ice For leagues along the shore. "The years have come, and the years have gone, But it never wears away The sense I have of the sights and sounds That marked that woful day. Flung here and there at the ocean's will, What strength had we 'gainst the tiger sea That sports with a sailor's woe? As sheer as the vessel's mast- But the worst, we thought, was past. Cut loose that royal yard!' I sprang to the rigging, young I was, "Above the fog, as I hugged the yard, I saw that an iceberg lay A berg like a mountain, closing fast Not a cable's length away! I could not see through the sheet of mist That covered all below, But I heard their cheery voices still, And I screamed to let them know. The cry went down, and the skipper hailed, But before the word could come It died in his throat, and I knew they saw The shape of the closing Doom! |