which he has beaten down the glory of the young
Achilles.

At last, out of the intense white sunshine into
the shadowy station comes the sluggish train,
slow and sombre as any fresh puntful of
ill-starred dead arriving in Hades. No busy bell
rings. There is no sign of any real guards to
marshal passengers. A young man, in a bright
red fez and a brighter sash than his companions,
opens the carriage-doors, and that is all. I
see no one in my carriage but two Cairene
youths, and an old imperturbable Turk in red
turned-up slippers and a sweltering
curry-powder-coloured pelisse— a great Turk, with
grizzly beard and a huge sealing-wax-looking
signet-ring, mounted in silver, on the rugose
forefinger of his right hand. In a wash-leather
bag in the breast-pocket of his third jacket he
carries a large chased gold watch, to which he
occasionally applies his tawny old eyes. The
boys are limp pert hobbledehoys in Greek dress,
whose whole attention seems absorbed by the
cotton-fields we pass. The blue gowns and bare
feet, the water jugs, and palm mats, and prayer
carpets, and tins, and brass waiters, are all stowed
away, and we burst into the sunshine.

The ibises, whiter than letter-paper, wade in
the creeks; the vulture whirls and poises in the
sky; the crows croak under the feather
umbrellas of the palms; the brown children, clothed
only in sunshine, roll and play about the
mud-fort villages, where the pigeons veer grey and
white in the shifting clouds, and where the
palmtrees rise in thickest columns; everywhere
through the soft black mud of the newly
subsided Nile, rises the sharp green corn blade. All
Egypt wears the Prophet's favourite and
sanctified colour.

The Arabs in the train are just getting into a
social condition — for every Egyptian is by birthright
courteous, affable, and gracious in manner,
though he may be envious, greedy, and slippery,
having, indeed, a little too much of the newly
escaped slave about him. The Arab is a
storyteller, a proverb quoter, a creature fond of hearing
poems read over his coffee, a humorist,
and by no means a fool, though very ignorant
and very superstitious; not the less ignorant
because quick-witted, not the less superstitious
because his religion is dying out.

The Turk is dozing in a dignified way, as
much as to say, " I know I'm giving way to
sleep, but it is under perfect control, and I can
open my eyes the moment I like." As for the
two clerkly bipeds, they are performing small
religious ceremonies preparatory to a cold lunch,
or it may be dinner. Each has got out his water-
bottle from under the seat, and each has placed
a large heavy bread bun on his knees for a tablecloth;
each then produces some soaked lupins
and a cold pigeon, which he sets to work
dismembering in the Eastern way with his
dexterous fingers. Just as the more stupid of the
two has got to his merry-thought, and the perter
to his bishop's nose, the train wheezily slackens
its speed, and men with red flags betokening
DANGER, come trotting down the line in a most
un-Oriental hurry. The train tries to elbow its
way farther; one half-hour of struggle, followed
by half an hour of stoppage, becomes alarming;
for the train from the central part of Egypt is
nearly due, and I know that at the next refreshment
station we have to be shunted for his
majesty to pass. I begin to feel the climate
of Egypt rather warm, for I was once in a
small railway collision, and I know what it was.
The greasy bipeds and the yellow-eyed Turk
sit, and staringly ejaculate " Wallah!" in the
broadest and slowest manner of a torpid and
fatalistic race.

Another half-hour, and crowds of half-naked
fellahs passing in different tints of blue
bedgown and brown cocoa-nut cap, come shouting
past our windows. From these shouts
"Emsig!" (look alive)— "Gallough!" (be sharp)
—"Iggerree!" (run)— " Wallah!" (by Allah)
—" Rovah!" (get away) we discover that the
train from Cairo has broken down on our line
of rails a quarter of a mile farther on; and
that four or five hundred fellaheen, employed to
repair the railroad from the effects of the late
devastating inundation, are at work, with screwjacks
and main force, essaying to heave up the
collapsed engine from the metals, but at present
without much result.

"Y-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-allah!" Hear the shout
of the straining five hundred, and the measured
cadence of their heaving cries! All in vain;
a neat brown-skinned guard, in red fez and
brown Greek bags (I know no other word for
his two swaying balloons), runs along under the
carriage-windows and informs some lucky dozen,
who happen to hear him, that as the engine
cannot be righted, those who wish to go on to
Cairo must get out of their train, and remove
themselves and baggage into the carriages
whilom drawn by the now-foundered engine.

Wallah! An Arab mind has struck out a
great— shall I not say a vast?— idea. The
people in the broken-down train are to get
into our train, and we are to get into the
broken-down train, which is then to be drawn
back again to Cairo. I have heavy chests
and ponderous bags, and I entreat the guard
to send Arabs to carry them. Presently Arabs
appear,— full four or five, for a train full
of passengers. The people in the first
carriages seize them as slaves, load them with
treasure, and drive them on with blows,
kicks in sensitive places, shouts of encouragement,
shrieks and yells. I ask the Rev. Mr.
Cruster, Britannic missionary to the Bactrians,
for advice. Forcing on his Arabs laden with
tent-making materials and heavy portmanteaus
full of fishermen's nets, he passes by on the
other side, with a grunt and growl about
"Number One;" and " Take care of oneself." I get
desperate, for to lose train, fare, and perhaps
luggage, is no joke anywhere— certainly not in
Egypt— besides the certainty of having to sleep
in a peasant's mud-hut, surrounded by goats,
fowls, ophthalmia, dirty children, and too
industrious fleas. I take up arms against a sea
of troubles, and I run to the luggage-van, now