on to the dromedary, which always accompanies
M. Guichard on his hunting expeditions, partly
to carry the game, and partly because his rider,
bring perched up so high, can sweep the desert
for miles. Soon after, two gazelles were
signalled by Abdoo on the dromedary, and we
again spread out in a half-moon; but they saw
us, and were off. As a last chance, M. Guichard
threw up the two fresh falcons, and encouraging
our dogs, away we went. One of the gazelles
lagged very considerably behind the other, and
we gained on it fast. M. Guichard was first
up, and flinging himself from his horse, saved
the life of a poor little baby gazelle. The
mother would not leave its young, and this
explained our coming up with her. The small
creature rode home on Mrs. Ross's knees, and
a goat was given it as step-mother. It grew up
to be most impudent and amusing, bounding
and springing about the rooms, destroying all
the divans by scratching, to make a soft bed,
and eating all the papers it could find. The
curious thing is to see gazelles eat tobacco. They
will trot up to a narghilé or chibouk, push the
fire off with their soft velvety noses, and chew
the hot tobacco with immense gusto.

On our way home we started a hare, which
Saoud shot through the head. Mrs. Ross
complimented him on his splendid shot, when Saoud,
salaaming low, answered, "Not so, O lady!
It was not my skill which directed the bullet,
but the good luck your visit has brought among
us." M. Guichard was forced to confess that
the Bedouins of the desert understood the art
of compliment far better than the French.

We arrived at Tell el Kebir in the afternoon,
and to our great regret had to leave at
midnight for Zag-a zig, in order to catch the train at
six in the morning. We reached Alexandria
about four, after a most curious and agreeable
visit.

      STEAM IN THE STREETS.

THE steam-horse in the street is not a new
idea. Did not Sir Isaac Newton himself
conceive such a thought, nearly two hundred years
ago? There is a certain book of his, in which
he speculates upon a globular vessel perched
upon four little wheels, a jet-pipe protruding
from one side, a seat adjacent to the other side,
and a triumphant charioteer on the seat. The
vessel being used as a steam-generator, and
steam issuing from the tube, the resistance and
reaction of the air would drive the vessel on its
wheels in the opposite direction.

But although Newton did not, so far as we
know, attempt to realise his notion, there was
an ingenious Frenchman, exactly midway in
time between Newton's days and ours, who
really did make a steam-carriage. This was M.
Cugnot, whose small rude machine is still
preserved at Paris. At first he made a model,
which he exhibited to the Compte de Saxe.
Then, under the patronage of the Due de Choiseul,
he made a steam-carriage, which not only
travelled, but travelled with such energy as to
travel through a brick wall. Hence arose a
belief that steam-power was too good, too strong
for the purpose, and could not be controlled.
Poor Cugnot was shelved; and his machine, if
it does not now, did a few years ago, occupy a
place in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers.
Some years before this—that is, more than a
century ago—Dr. Robison conceived the
possibility of propelling a road vehicle by steam
power; and James Watt, to whom the thought
was communicated, afterwards sketched a
practical plan for the purpose. He said to himself,
"Let us form a boiler of wooden staves, hooped
together like a cask; let us put an iron furnace
in it, separated from the wood by water; let
the water boil, and the steam be made to move
a piston in a cylinder; let the piston move some
wheels, and let these move some other wheels
on which the cask is placed; and, lo, we shall
have a steam-carriage." But Watt, who had
many schemes in his head, allowed this one to
die out; and he, as well as Newton, took rank
among the thinkers rather than the workers on
this subject.

The person who really came second after
Cugnot as coachmaker in this fashion, was Mr.
Murdoch, a Cornish engineer, who, about eighty
years ago, caused a little steam-carriage to run
along the highway near Redruth. The Cornish
miners, prone to superstition, saw a fiery little
monster running along the road one dark night.
They cried out, they ran, more than half believing
that the arch fiery monster of all monsters was
close at, their heels. This contrivance of Mr.
Murdoch's, whatever its details may have been,
soon lapsed into forgetfulness. Next came Mr.
William Symington, who tried his hand at steam-
coaches as well as steam-boats: so far, at least,
as to construct a model. In his model, which
was exhibited at Edinburgh, the moving mechanism
was placed in the back of the carriage, and
all the several portions seemed suitably placed
in regard to each other; but the execrable state
of the roads, and the difficulty of procuring
adequate supplies of fuel and water, deterred
Symington from any further development of his
scheme. About the same time, one Oliver Evans,
an American, of Pennsylvania, suggested to the
legislature of that state the encouragement of
many inventive schemes of his, one of which
was a steam-carriage to run on common roads.
Whether he was too clever for the legislators, or
they were for him, nothing definite came of the
proposal. He was a prophet, however; for he
predicted the arrival of days when carriages
propelled by steam would come into general use on
turnpike-roads for the transport of passengers as
well as goods, and that they would travel, ay,
fifteen miles an hour.

We hence see that, before the advent of the
present century, men had thought as busily of
steam-carriages as of steam-boats and of
railways: all the three kinds of invention being
about in the same tentative position at the same
time. Then, when this century was only two
years old, Messrs. Trevethick and Vivian tried