quired, as our donkeys ambled on together toward the Pyramids.

"Married? yes: I have two wives, and shall have two more as soon as I can support them."

"You are about my own age, Ibrahim; I hardly know what I should do with one wife, to say nothing of four."

ing with Ibrahim. He communicated with me in bad English and tolerable French. The destruction of the Alexandrian library, by the great propagator of the Moslem faith in Egypt, was a fortunate circumstance for him, as also for all dragomen; and I am certain that he would have exulted in that catastrophe had he been acquainted with the fact of "Mashalla! When I was a Christian its occurrence. If not perfectly honest in I had but one wife. Her little finger was all his dealings, I must say of my drago- worth more than all the other women of man that, at least, he allowed no one to Cairo together. She died. Allah kerim! cheat me but himself and his particular (God is merciful!) I became a Mussulfriends. man, knowing that it would give me a "Are you married, Ibrahim?" I in- higher position and increase my income;

and now I am equally fond of my two | wives who share the one or the other with wives." him; as we in America judge of a family's wealth from the number of servants; of its poverty from the number of children and dogs?"

505

one of the daughters of the faithful. It ugliness classified by the Arabs; brayed

|

was during a visit to the tombs of the Mamelukes. A group of laughing girls met me, and, as often happens in the East, held out their hands timidly for the present from the howadji. To the one who promised most in the matter of good looks, I offered liberal backsheesh if she would show me her entire face. The Arab girl looked the shining piasters, arranged her vail so as to show one side of her face, and then turning round, adjusted it on the other side so as in all to show me her entire countenance. Partial views were not in accordance with my original intention; but the thing was done so cleverly, and, moreover, the sight of a female face was so refreshing after months of travel among semi-barbarians, that I could not withhold the promised piasters.

in the most spasmodic and excruciating manner, and evinced, at times, a disposition vicious beyond that of most donkeys. He possessed neither the soft eyes and tender, womanish ways of the camel, nor the mysterious water sacks, and the still stance; but in his humble way, Beggar more mysterious hump of oxydizable subserved me as well as the patient ship of the desert.

The rest of the company overtook us, and we scampered on together as fast as the donkey-boys could urge forward our long-eared quadrupeds. Donkey-boys is the generic name of these useful assistants of the traveler in Cairo, although many of them have the years and the stature of men. Compared with the donkeys themselves, they are "the power behind the throne greater than the throne itself," a proposition to which my English compagnons de voyage could not demur. Abdallah was the name of the sprightly young Arab who served me in that capacity during my stay in the capital of Egypt, while the four-footed partner of his joys and sorrows rejoiced in the appellation of Beggar.

Abdallah served me faithfully. When we visited the cadi's court together, justice had on that day been so tempered with mercy, that there was no culprit to be punished. But that I might not fail to see the practical working of an Egyptian institution, Abdallah promptly offered to be tied down and bastinadoed for only three piasters. To that vicarious punishment I did not consent; but when I gave him the three piasters as backsheesh, his dark eye rolled with as fine a frenzy as that of the New-York newsboy or the London boot-black

Of

Where man remains semi-barbarous, the very beasts appear to become humanized, as if to shame him of his folly. Beggar himself I cannot forbear making particular mention in this connection. He combined all the seventy points of VOL. VIII.-36

without interest. Our route, though circuitous, was not Several villages were elevations, so as not to be swept away to be seen in the distance, built upon slight during the inundation of the river, and guarded by lofty palm trees, the silent sentries of the plain. Now and then we passed by groups of Fellahs, engaged in the labors of the field; or met a company of Bedouins, on one of those periodical visits which they make to the city for the in haste to the tented life of the desert. purchase of ammunition, to return again I noticed many white ibises. Though no longer numbered among Egypt's gods, they are still regarded with a certain degree of reverence by the superstitious Fellah, the descendant of the ancient Egyptian.

It owes its very existence to the periodical Egypt is the land of striking contrasts. overflowing of a river, a circumstance regarded elsewhere as the greatest of calamities. The desert and the fertile land, the Typhon and Osiris of fabulous times, are here contending in an everlasting conflict for the mastery.

Egypt became the theater of a civilization Of the most recent geological origin, ranking among the earliest developments of the human race, if not prior to any other, so ancient, indeed, as to extend far beyond historical times, into that dim antiquity whence, save the records on her mentary knowledge has floated down to own imperishable monuments, no fragus, even on the sea of tradition. She was great and glorious centuries before the the wilds of Judea. The early philosochildren of Israel carried civilization into hither to drink at original fountains of phers of Greece and Rome, repairing knowledge, stood by those mysterious Pyramids, with note-book in hand, like the pilgrim of to-day from a far-off Atlantis, but even more ignorant than he of their origin and purpose.

A tropical sun looks down from a sky, rarely obscured by clouds, upon a soil never yielding, except on the oasis, or in the valleys of the Nile, to the sweet influences of the falling rain and of the infinitesimal dew.

We passed by many fields of ripening Dhoura Sefi, or Egyptian corn, while in other and less elevated places Fellah peasants were "sowing their bread upon the waters, to reap a harvest after many days." It is customary to scatter seeds upon the retiring waters, when, after a few more days of evaporation, they are deposited in the soft mud left behind by the river, and speedily take root. Now and then, also, the traveler sees the Fellah treading in his seed with oxen, the same as in the days of Herodotus. The valley of the Nile is the emblem of fertility, but the sable wing of despotism has settled over unhappy Egypt. The entire soil belongs to the viceroy, and the inhabitants are his "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Most of the reforms introduced by Mohammed Ali have been abandoned by his successors. Aside from the improvements the army and the fleet, the hospital near Cairo, and a small polytechnic school at Boulak, are the only existing institutions calling to mind the reign of Egypt's greatest sovereign in modern times.

To the former of these is attached a medical school, which I took occasion to visit while stopping in Cairo. The following conversation between one of the professors, a native Arab, and myself, will show how far the darkness of Egypt has been penetrated by the light of our free institutions.

viceroy, is held in universal detestation. To him fell all the vices, with none of the redeeming virtues, of the illustrious Mohammed Ali. The guide conducts the traveler to the room where Abas, at once the Nero and Caligula of Egypt, is supposed to have been strangled by the two Circassian guards whom he always kept standing by his bedside during his sleeping hours.

The Pacha, while viceroy, visited Alexandria twice, but could not be induced to approach the city afterward, from a superstitious idea that the third visit would prove fatal to him.

•

His favorite occupation was to make large collections of dogs and cats-animals which he cherished much as the ancient sovereigns of Egypt did Apis and the sacred Ibis. The Lares and Penates of Abas Pacha were quartered in different parts of Egypt, where they enjoyed his periodical visits. After the death of the Pacha, however, these canine and feline recipients of the royal favor were turned loose, and are now the most pitiable of objects.

ahim ated to me, that on a certain day a Frenchman appeared in the streets of Cairo leading a dog possessed of two tails. Information of this rare phenomenon was conveyed to Abas Pacha, and the fortunate Frenchman was at once summoned to wait upon his highness at the palace. The Pacha was in ecstasies. The apotheosis of Anubis, after having exhausted the cycle of the metempsychosis, and appeared again in his original form, could not have given him greater delight. The Frenchman would not part with the creature for less than twelve thousand five hundred Turkish piasters, ($500,) a sum which the Pacha at last consented to give, not suspecting for a moment that the extra tail was a product of French

"Is America in New-York, or NewYork in America ?" inquired of me the sapient professor of the theory and practice of medicine, in French. "New-York is an integral part of the civilization. American Union."

"Has the American language any resemblance to the English?"

"A decided resemblance." "How much longer will you remain subject to Great Britain?" continued the Arab professor.

"We have already been independent more than three-fourths of a century." "Who, then, is your emperor?" "Franklin Pierce, Esq."

The memory of Abas Pacha, the last great-eyed Orient.

The latter became disengaged the same evening, while the Pacha of two tails was exhibiting his paragon of canine wonders to a circle of admiring friends. Abas was infuriated. The Frenchman was nowhere to be found, and the unfortunate possessor of the bifurcated caudal appendage was forthwith ordered to be curtailed one inch behind his ears.

Alas for Egypt! the land of sunny skies and all the soft delights of the