all the occupations of life. He visited the
quarries of Silsileh, whence nearly all the red
stone used by the ancient Egyptian architects
and sculptors came; and there beheld
enormous single-stoned colossal figures nearly
finished—redly snowed up, as it were, and trying
hard to break out—waiting for the finishing
touches, never to be given by the mummied
hands of thousands of years ago. In front
of the temple of Abou Simbel, he saw gigantic
figures sixty feet in height and twenty-one
across the shoulders, dwarfing live men on
camels down to pigmies. Elsewhere he
beheld complacent monsters tumbled down like
ill-used Dolls of a Titanic make, and staring
with stupid benignity at the arid earth whereon
their huge faces rested. His last look of
that amazing land was at the Great Sphinx,
buried in the sand—sand in its eyes, sand in
its ears, sand drifted on its broken nose, sand
lodging, feet deep, in the ledges of its head—
struggling out of a wide sea of sand, as if to
look hopelessly forth for the ancient glories
once surrounding it.

In this expedition, MR. BOOLEY acquired
some curious information in reference to the
language of hieroglyphics. He encountered the
Simoom in the Desert, and lay down, with the
rest of his caravan, until it had passed over. He
also beheld on the horizon some of those stalking
pillars of sand, apparently reaching from
earth to heaven, which, with the red sun shining
through them, so terrified the Arabs attendant
on Bruce, that they fell prostrate, crying that
the Day of Judgment was come. More Copts,
Turks, Arabs, Fellahs, Bedouins, Mosques,
Mamelukes, and Moosulmen he saw, than we
have space to tell. His days were all Arabian
Nights, and he saw wonders without end.

This might have satiated any ordinary man,
for a time at least. But MR. BOOLEY, being no
ordinary man, within twenty-four hours of his
arrival at home was making The Overland
Journey to India.

He has emphatically described this, as 'a
beautiful piece of scenery,' and 'a perfect
picture.' The appearance of Malta and Gibraltar
he can never sufficiently commend. In crossing
the Desert from Grand Cairo to Suez,
he was particularly struck by the undulations
of the Sandscape (he preferred that word to
Landscape, as more expressive of the region),
and by the incident of beholding a caravan
upon its line of march; a spectacle which in
the remembrance always affords him the
utmost pleasure. Of the stations on the
Desert, and the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon,
he likewise entertains a lively recollection.
Calcutta he praises also; though he has been
heard to observe that the British military at
that seat of Government were not as well
proportioned as he could desire the soldiers of his
country to be; and that the breed of horses there
in use was susceptible of some improvement.

Once more in his native land, with the
vigor of his constitution unimpaired by the
many toils and fatigues he had encountered,
what had MR. BOOLEY now to do, but, full of
years and honor, to recline upon the grateful
appreciation of his Queen and country, always
eager to distinguish peaceful merit? What
had he now to do, but to receive the decoration
ever ready to be bestowed, in England,
on men deservedly distinguished, and to take
his place among the best? He had this to do.
He had yet to achieve the most astonishing
enterprise for which he was reserved. In all
the countries he had yet visited, he had seen
no frost and snow. He resolved to make a
voyage to the ice-bound Arctic Regions.

In pursuance of this surprising determination,
MR. BOOLEY accompanied the Expedition
under Sir James Ross, consisting of Her
Majesty's ships, the Enterprise and Investigator,
which sailed from the river Thames on
the 12th of May, 1848, and which, on the 11th
of September, entered Port Leopold Harbor.

In this inhospitable region, surrounded by
eternal ice, cheered by no glimpse of the sun,
shrouded in gloom and darkness, MR. BOOLEY
passed the entire winter. The ships were
covered in, and fortified all round with walls
of ice and snow; the masts were frozen up;
hoar frost settled on the yards, tops, shrouds,
stays, and rigging; around, in every direction,
lay an interminable waste, on which only the
bright stars, the yellow moon, and the vivid
Aurora Borealis looked, by night or day.

And yet the desolate sublimity of this
astounding spectacle was broken in a pleasant
and surprising manner. In the remote solitude
to which he had penetrated, MR. BOOLEY
(who saw no Esquimaux during his stay,
though he looked for them in every direction)
had the happiness of encountering two Scotch
gardeners; several English compositors,
accompanied by their wives; three brass
founders from the neighbourhood of Long Acre,
London; two coach painters, a gold-beater
and his only daughter, by trade a stay-maker;
and several other working-people from sundry
parts of Great Britain who had conceived
the extraordinary idea of 'holiday-making'
in the frozen wilderness. Hither too, had
Miss Creeble and her three young ladies
penetrated: the latter attired in braided pea-
coats of a comparatively light material; and
Miss Creeble defended from the inclemency
of a Polar Winter by no other outer garment
than a wadded Polka-jacket. He found this
courageous lady in the act of explaining, to
the youthful sharers of her toils, the various
phases of nature by which they were
surrounded. Her explanations were principally
wrong, but her intentions always admirable.

Cheered by the society of these fellow-adventurers,
MR. BOOLEY slowly glided on into
the summer season. And now, at midnight,
all was bright and shining. Mountains of ice,
wedged and broken into the strangest forms—
jagged points, spires, pinnacles, pyramids,
turrets, columns in endless succession and in
infinite variety, flashing and sparkling with
ten thousand hues, as though the treasures of