former had passed upwards I should, perhaps, miss seeing Karnak and Luxor, and the other sights of the once hundredgated Thebes. To allay my weeping on that point Abdul says,

"What matters? You are going after this to Alexandria, and thence to Palestine and Syria. You will there see Baalbec, the ruins of which are on a grander scale than those of Thebes. They will be more of a surprise also, if you miss seeing these Egyptian ones. Come here next year, and go on by railway."

It was so distressing to think of seeing Thebes on a return ticket, that I more than ever wanted to get there before the railroad did, but there seemed no help for it. Abdul's next clenching remarks seemed to finish the matter: "If you catch the steamer, you go by steam: and what difference between steam on water now and steam on land then? What is to be seen will look much the same whenever you come. There is no hurry to see Thebes. When the railway is completed the Egyptian Great Exhibition will likely be held there, and then you'll have to come!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

AN AWAKENED CITY.

THE distance, between one and two hundred miles, from Cairo the grand to Alexandria the Great, can be traversed, like to the rest of Egypt, by land or water. Before the railway connexion now made the choice was mostly in favour of the water-way, but now the rail has no rival, and the canal is inconsolable. It is curious to see what antipathy that old form of conveyance bears to the new one. The camel hates the iron horse, and will not be conciliated. On its approach he has to be tightly held by those whom he often drags for some distance, until the puffing abomination has passed. His dislike to it is the genuine one that I have seen shown elsewhere in the same way by an old stage coachman. If escape cannot be otherwise made from the sight of it, the animal determinedly faces round and turns its rear to the engine in a grandly contemptuous manner-so remaining until it is out of sight and hearing.

In like manner I have seen at the opera a good old dowager, taken thither probably for annoyance by her son-in-law, turn angrily her back to the stage when the pet of the ballet, with little to speak of in the way of dress, came bounding upon the boards. It is the protest of the ancient against the modern. The camel is, however, in Egypt the right thing in the right place. Railways and steamboats, as new things, are not so. For him is the land, and for its waters are the dahabieh and kangia. It was forbidden hereabout of olden time to "put new wine into old bottles."

The Custom-house.

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Novel delicacies are offered to one at the stations on this line of rail. Green peas in the pod and salt cream-cheese are two of them. As there are no refreshments worth taking at the stations here, and I only saw them offered at one, the barefooted little restaurateurs who carry about these things are much encouraged. I am beginning to think that Nile water is nice by this time, and have got quite used to swallowing it out of the neck of the big earthern decanter in which it is carried. By way of washing the mouth of it before a drink is taken, fully half the water gets spilled on the ground. The Nile is, however, proverbially plentiful. On Shakespeare's authority, you cannot “drink up Esil," any more than eat one of its crocodiles.

The custom-house folks gave me no trouble in entering or leaving, any Egyptian port. They are supposed not to allow antiquities to be taken out of the country, but they can be blinded by bribes. Covering the official eyes with piastres one might even walk off with an obelisk. In reply to the question if I had anything in my hand-bag, the answer of a half-crown seemed quite sufficient, and saved all search for a secreted mummy. I was let pass for that much without trouble, even with such an antiquity as a scarabeus four thousand years old hanging to one's watch chain. It is satisfactory to do business with folks open to reason, and the Egyptians are much that way-these "heirs of all the ages," and their wisdom. They are that, if any people are; but, as with heirs. generally, their inheritance seems to have been wasted.

Eight stations, mostly with unspeakable names, are passed on the road. The most interesting place between Cairo and Alexandria is Rosetta, famous for the "Rosetta stone," by which the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics was found and also for the retreat into that village of the British forces in 1807 in their then unsuccessful expedition. There is no station, however, at this place, which is merely pointed out to the traveller in the distance, from which it has, like to many other things so seen, a pleasing look.

The rail brings one to the modern part of Alexandria, or

perhaps it is better to say, as so much is modern, the bestbuilt part of it, where the streets are wide, and the stone-buiit houses all of latest date. The roadways are flagged everywhere in the fashion of the sidewalks of other towns. Such must be severely punishable to the feet of horses; and even a fall from one of the donkeys cannot be pleasant on these flags. The tall stone-built houses give to this part of Alexandria a stately, staid, and dull appearance, wanting in all the pleasing astonishments of that part of Cairo in which one is landed on going from Suez, There is much in the effect of a first impression, and that made by what is here seen of Alexandria is of a very negative character altogether. For the which I feel sorry! There is no city in the world into which one should enter with feelings of greater interest than this awakened old city of Alexandria, to which the name of Great as properly belonged as to its builder. I am not, unfortunately, of commercial instincts, but yet feel intense respect for a city of which, among its many titles to fame, are these, that, ere the tide of the world's traffic was diverted from its shore, it was first of commercial cities, the warehouse and treasury of the produce of all the eastern world, and also, in its famous library, the great storehouse of the world's literature.

Alexandria is thus entered by rail at a point furthest from its water-gate. It is hereabout called the " Frank quarter," and has much of a Frenchified look about it. Down by the harbour the streets narrow, and things approach an Oriental-an old Alexandrian-appearance. On my way down thither I pass through a large square decorated with an alabaster obelisk, an equestrian figure of Mehemet Ali, banks, consuls' offices, and hotels. Very cosmopolitan is this awakened Alexandria. The tide of the world's traffic, turning again to this quarter, has left a zoological-like collection of humanity upon its shore. There are people here from all parts of the world, and not a few that the world would be all the better for being rid of. About this new part of the city there is a decided emptiness, space, and lack of business and bustle, very apparent to any one who has come to it, as I had done, from

busy Cairo. But the newly awakened Alexandria is stretching itself after its long sleep, and growing also, which accounts naturally enough for spareness of form. It will soon fill out rapidly enough, judging by the evidence of the past few years; and though not yet of half Cairo's population, will yet, in racing language, run that capital hard.

I get the blessed boon of a volunteer guide in the person of an old Australian friend, who is better help than a dozen hirelings. We exchange notes. I can tell him principally of a city that has no history beyond forty years, and he tells me of this one that is all history itself. Every spot hereabout seems haunted ground-redolent of memories more or less pleasant, but all of landmarks in the world's course. St. Mark and St. Catharine were here martyred, which gives something of a scriptural and sacred character to it. A philosophic and classical one attaches to it in Aristotle's having once walked and taught here. To Englishmen comes a patriotic feeling of some questionable sort from their St. George having here lost his life. From Heliopolis hither came and settled Egypt's great school, to which gathered philosophers and mathematicians from all quarters. It was the abiding-place also of such fathers of the church as Origen and Athanasius, who here warred and worried with the schisms and heresies then fashionable. It was the metropolis of the world-the London of its time. Alexander well deserved, as its founder, to be brought hither from Babylon in the coffin of gold in which he was here buried. Even Rome, with characteristic modesty, admitted Alexandria to be in greatness only second to herself, after which there is no more to say on that head.

And yet another word or so must be said. That coffin of gold was not allowed a long rest. A glass case, in place of a golden one, was considered better for the remains of Alexander, and the honour of the exchange-which, I daresay, was held to be no robbery-is divided by historians between two kings. In that old Alexandria of fifteen miles circumference there were as many bond as free, though the slaves did not count in the census. A curious return of its belong