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questions which I have not solved.

They seemed

exceedingly sharp, and a great number of them could express themselves, after a fashion, in three or four foreign tongues. The little ragamuffins remind one exceedingly of the Neapolitan small fry. The boys are much better looking than the girls; children of both sexes have the most beautiful teeth and gums I ever saw. Except at the ball at Ismaïlia, I never heard of any of our party losing so much as a handkerchief; and it was worthy of remark, not only that everything turned up right in the end, but that people who got the chance handling of our property took careful note of what they received, and gave an account of all when their service was done. I feel certain that they are not all naturally rogues, though they are not registered Al in respect of honesty; and that though they may be idle and thriftless (I have no proof that they are so), there is the making of a fine people in them. The Arab villages are the most shocking places I ever saw. The houses, if houses they may be called, are simply shelters of the very meanest construction-very little above the lairs of beasts. There was not the slightest sign of any household property-not even of a bed. I fancy that the shaggy garments which they wear serve them for night as well as day; indeed it is clear, by many infallible signs, that, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, they never can be changed. Their cooking, such as it is, is done out of doors: washing may be left altogether out of the account.

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My visit to the noted Citadel occupied a morning very pleasantly. As a place of strength there is not much in these days to be said for it; but as occupying commanding ground it deserves the praise of enabling those who enter it to enjoy a glorious panorama. The city, old and young, the Nile, the green fields, the ranges of hills, the palm-trees, the desert, all bathed in that purple atmosphere which I have so often spoken of, and stretching away into distances which show no horizon, but fade into a rosy cloud, afford a series of sights which delight by some influence beyond their mere grandeur or beauty. There is witchcraft about the whole sight; a charm hangs not so much over the landscape as over you, the beholder, which, while it makes you thoroughly enjoy, keeps suggesting that it is an unsubstantial pageant, a glorious vision from which you will awake. Believe me it is very delicious idleness to wander about these heights; but there are other things to be seen besides the views. One of the buildings contains a large hall, rich in ornament and of dazzling brilliancy, with that fairy-palace appearance so often met with in the East. At first I thought it was a mosque, from seeing many believers at their prayers and prostrations, but I believe it was only that the hour of prayer happened to arrive while I was there; for when, by the voice of the muezzin or other signal, they are made aware that the time has come, they commence their devotions without regard to place or spectator.

A bronze gate, backed by a rich curtain on your

right as you enter the hall, indicates that there is some inner apartment. A Mussulman presents himself with a key in his hand, and, after receiving baksheesh, opens the gate. You enter and find yourself in a well-lighted and rather gay-looking room, in the centre of which stands the tomb of Mehemet Ali, the first Viceroy. The tomb itself is of marble, very rich, and highly ornamented. It was a rather differentlooking place from one of our sepulchral vaults, Bales.

One of the sights of the Citadel is Joseph's Well. The tourist who has not properly primed himself is apt to prick up his ears at this name, and to fancy that he has struck the trail of the patriarch, who, he knows, got fourteen years with hard labour somewhere hereabout for going abroad insufficiently dressed. Was the digging of this well, then, the substitute for the crank and the mill? Is it the living record of how Joseph and his butler and baker fellow-sufferers were made to toil when their feet were hurt in the stocks and the iron entered into their souls? Or is it a great achievement of Joseph in after-years, when, having passed triumphantly through the terrors of adversity and the prison, and the still more dreadful outrages to which the unprotected male was in that day subject, he was governor over all the land of Egypt, and wielded its mighty labour power? Pooh! not a bit of it. The Joseph who made the well and gave his name thereto is a very different person from the great interpreter

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