followed by a splendid Newfoundland dog. This
old gentleman, to whom I am presented, was but
eighteen months ago the terror of the Russian
navy, and promised, had he had the opportunity,
to have rivalled the fame of that Nelson of
whose portrait, in his small slight figure, his
silver hair cut straight across the forehead, his
clear blue eye, and his tanned cheeks, he is the
very counterpart. This is Lord Lyons,
Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean squadron,
who, I hear, is as popular as he is famous.

A message from the post-office to tell me that
my mails are nearly ready to be taken "in
charge" again, causes us to hurry back. I
have only time for a peep into St. John's
Church, and for the most cursory of glances
at its noble inlaid marble floor, its splendid
pillars, and its silver gates, which last were,
during the war-time, painted black by the
inhabitants to deceive the rapacity of the French.
At the landing-place, I find the post-office boat
with the mail-boxes from Malta to the East
already on board; we start at once; and in a
few minutes the Niger, with her deck pleasantly
enveloped in a penetrating black dust—for she
has been going through the operation of " coal-
ing"—is once more standing out to sea.

On the third morning after leaving Malta, I
am awakened at six o'clock by a continuous
pattering over my head, as an accompaniment to
which is sung a diabolical chorus, monotonous,
protracted, apparently never ending, of " Allah-
ill-lah! Allah-ill-lah!" which sounds to me so
excessively Eastern, that I at once conclude
we have arrived at Alexandria. Looking out
through my bull's-eye porthole, I see a long
low sandy shore with a few windmills in groups,
a line of walls, a few sand hills, and a fraction of
a harbour, at the end of which I am able to
distinguish about a third of the foundation end
of what is apparently a lighthouse. Dressing
myself hurriedly, I go on deck, and there find,
engaged in some nautical evolution which I did
not understand, and therefore will not attempt
to describe (I believe it had something to do
with the anchor), a long line of about thirty
Arabs marching in Indian file along the deck,
and hauling at a rope. Dressed in the slightest
possible covering, in most cases having only one
robe, and that a kind of short blue cotton gown,
filthy in person, hideous in feature, these
wretched beings give me my first notions of the
inhabitant of the East, and their dismal croaking
chorus conveys to me my first impressions of the
sounds of that land where the voice of the
nightingale never is mute. I notice that the
curse of ophthalmia, of which we have all heard,
is no exaggerated fiction. I doubt whether
one of the men now engaged in hauling at the
rope before me has the proper sight of both
eyes; the disease is visible in most of them.
In some the eye is entirely gone, the lid drooping
over the vacant orifice, while in others the small
green fly, the destroyer, can be plainly seen
busy. While I am gazing at these wretched
people, I am touched on the elbow by a clerk
from the Alexandrian post-office, who tells me

that I am in luck; that the homeward-bound
steamer bearing my return mails has not
yet been telegraphed at Suez; and that con-
equently I shall have time to run over
to Cairo, and see the Nile and the pyramids.
In five minutes I have settled my business, made
over my mails to a magnificent old gentleman in
a fez cap, flowing beard, blue cloth suit, and
red turn up shoes, who gives me a receipt on
my time-bill in Oriental characters (thereby
immediately recalling the inscriptions on the
Chutnee jars at home), and, in company with
the Irishman, and the prettiest lady and her
husband, I am being pulled rapidly towards the
shove by a stalwart Egyptian boatman and his
nearly naked little boy.

We land on a low, flat, sandy shore, in the midst
of a crowd of dirty, lazy Arabs, facsimiles of
those we have left on board, who immediately
surround us and clamour for " backshish." It
needs all the vigour of the Irishman's umbrella-
bearing hand, and a fantasia by the present
writer on the heads of the most clamorous with
a carpet-bag, before we can make any progress.
We have scarcely started when we are at once
initiated into the manner in which public works
in Egypt are carried out. The stone used in
the formation of the landing-place has to be
brought from some little distance; a tram-road,
with a square van on it, would be employed in
England for the transport; in default of such an
arrangement a few hand-barrows would be found
efficacious; but we meet some fifty Egyptians
marching in Indian file, each bearing in his hand
a small square block of stone, about fifteen
pounds weight some in front of them as though
it were a trophy and all singing the undying
chorus of "Allah-ill-lah!" These blocks they
deposit in order, and then leisurely return for
more.

What is this tremendous cloud of dust close
ahead of us, from the midst of which proceeds
the most hideous noise, and wherein appears to
be going on, some kind of weird combat, as
human heads and bestial hoofs occasionally made
themselves visible through the mist? These are
the far-famed donkeys and donkey-boys of
Alexandria. Charge! They are round you in
a minute; wherever you turn, you see long ears
or pawing, hoofs! "Hallo, sir! hi, sir! take
my tankey, sir! my tankey, sir, beau'ful tan-
key, sir! faas, sir, faas as Niger, sir!" (Name
varied to suit that of ship in which you arrive.)
"Hallo, sir! Go to post-office, sir! Railway, sir!
Look my saddle, sir! my stirrup! His dam bad
tankey, sir; lie down in sand and throw, sir, off!
Hallo, sir! my tankey!" I jump on a very
small animal, under a huge demi-pique saddle,
and arn straightway galloped off with,
unresistingly. Is it? Can it be? By Jove, it is!
A string of camels! Now, for the first time, I
believe that I have left St. Martin's-le-Grand
in London far behind, that I am in the land of
the cypress and myrtle, and ready to be melted to
sorrow or maddened to crime! A shower of
blows on my donkey from my driver, and a storm
of " Hi, hi's!" (the true Blackheath and Hampstead