unloaded. I throw a carpet-bag over my
shoulder (it is as heavy as poor Christian's
burden), I give my dragoman one handle of a
portmanteau to carry, I sling round me my
pistol whips and sticks and umbrellas, I buckle
on my courier's bag, and set forth on the tramp
across the loose sand embankment.

Such confusion — such wonderful people; no
road but two loose strips of sand on the edge of
an embankment running down to a canal.
Greeks, Jews, and Gentiles, laden with their
luggage, perspiring, jostling, elbowing, cursing,
hurrying to the train, and all this under a
vertical sun. One Jew— a red-bearded, simpering
Jew— in a bright crimson robe, and a brass
crutch-headed walking-stick; Frank officers, with
swords in oil-skin cases, and cocked-hats in tin-
boxes; live colonels, reddening under their own
valises; old Arabs, removing wood bit by bit, and
cucumbers one at a time; Cariene ladies, their
black silk cloaks blowing out in the disrespectful
wind, looking scared and vexed, in spite of their
white-veiled faces, and followed by their remarkable
luggage— white tin-boxes and red trunks,
flourished over with brass-work, and bird-cages
and round brass trays; black slaves, in white
tunics, carrying these things in the smallest
doses— one man strutting under a pair of water-
bottles, and so on. But what amused me most,
was to see a French lieutenant, a Creole—
newly risen from the ranks, I dare swear— grand
in cherry-coloured trousers, blue coat and red
facings, who drove before him a tall old Arab,
with legs thinner than those of most chairs,
who perspired under the responsibility of a
small linen knapsack, bound for Cochin China.
I am afraid to relate how many times I saw
angry Egyptian gentlemen on this day spit at
or cuff the poor impromptu Arab porters, for
dropping pipe-cases, tobacco-pouches, water-
bottles, or saddle-bags.

Two hours of solid, irrecoverable time, did
that transfer cost us, and great the loss of
breath and temper— of saliva, exudations, and
Arabic. At the end of our stumbling and scalding
tramp (what a dreadful and spiteful tendency
a full portmanteau has, to jerk itself round
when carried, and so to sprain your wrist—
astaghfer Allah!— God forefend!), I found that
half an hour still remained for refreshment.
I found out this from a casual conversation I
heard under my window, between an English
engineer and two English stokers. They were
all dressed in plain shirts and trousers, which
gave them rather a cricketing air. They sat
together— let us call them Smith, Brown, and
Jones— on the steps under my carriage-window.
They all wore red tarboushes, dirty sashes,
down-at-heel slippers. Smith smoked a cherry-
stick pipe; Brown carried a gourd nearly as
big as a barrel of oysters, under his left arm,
and now and then, as he spoke, slashed out a
huge slice with his knife; Jones munched and
tore in a captious way at a white chunk of
sugar-cane, about a foot and a half long and as
thick as a stair banister. I asked Brown, who
spoke in a hoarse, stage-tyrant's voice, how he
liked the life? " Pretty well," he said, " now
he knew the lingo, and the ways of the chaps."
Jones, who was heard imperfectly through a
sappy crust of sugar-cane, was believed to
express his opinion that " Egypt was a precious
hot place." Smith begged to say that "the
pay was good, and the grub not so bad." On
asking the reason of Mr. Brown's distressing
catarrh, I was informed that it arose from his
having fallen, engine and all, last week, into the
Nile, through the sudden failure of an embankment.

The dinner was very bad and ludicrously
dear; beef ligneous in fibre, greasy swabs of
cabbages, dates thick with flies, were not
redeemed by the neatness of the room or the care
of the waiters. The place was an outhouse;
the butcher, with a goat on his shoulders, bullied
through us on the way to his slaughter-house;
the dirty Arab servants bounced against each
other as they ran about. The only redeeming
point of the dinner— nay, its sweet crowning
—was the concluding dish, the mish-mish, a
common, but great delicacy in Egypt. It
consists of dried apricots stewed and served warm
in their own juice, seasoned with scented little
clubs of cloves, and delicious little papyri rolls
of Indian cinnamon.

TWO NIGHTS IN THE CATACOMBS.

IT is rather difficult to obtain access to the
catacombs of Paris, simply, I believe, because the
government consider that it is morbid and valueless
curiosity which induces people to desire to
visit such a spot; but there is an impression
more or less prevalent in the French provinces
that the reason why so many difficulties are
thrown in the way of paying a visit to these
gigantic galleries is owing to the fact that there
is an entry into this underground world from the
palace of the Tuileries. The provincials
reverently believe that the reigning potentate,
whether king or emperor, is afraid of assassins
being able to penetrate into the palace by this
entry if the catacombs become publicly known,
and their intricacies made comprehensible. Say
to any one of these provincials that the case
would be met by blocking up this palatial
entrance to the vaults, and you will get in return
a violent shake of the head. " No, no," your
countryman will answer; "if majesty is afraid
of assassins entering from the catacombs,
remember the catacombs would give a means of
escaping if assassins, in the shape of rebels, entered
at the open gate. No, no; they'll not block up
the palace entrance to the catacombs. No, no!"

Let this be as it may, it is certain that I and
a party of four, exclusive of the guide, obtained
permission to visit underground Paris. And it
is worthy of remark, as illustrating upon what
small hinges serious events turn, that if I had
not said the following words to the cabman who
took me to the entrance, I should never have had
to endure what I am about to describe. These
words were: " If I do not return in half an hour,