in extricable confusion. There are three
young cadets on Arab steeds, hired at a
dollar a hour, prancing about in an uneasy
frame of body and mind. There is a sort
of hybrid calèche brimful of overland
travellers, amongst them my companions of
the Desert, the Tipperary young lady, and
her tall brown-hatted friend, eating custard
apples and laughing with true Hibernian
vigor at the strange scenes about them. One
of the young innocent cadets backs his
prancing steed into a jeweller's shop, and
plays havoc with the glass-cases. The others,
flying to his rescue, upset a Greek merchant
and a brace of Mollahs, or Moslem church-
wardens, and damage a score of weak-eyed
mendicants, much to the enjoyment of my
friends in the calèche.

Alas, how fleetly the moments pass! I
could yet wander for days amidst the by-
ways of this fine old city, and well employ
the time. There are quiet nooks and corners
I could with pleasure dive into. There are
grey-bearded old dealers, the very counterpart
of the broker employed by the Christian
Merchant in the Arabian Nights to sell his
Bagdad wares. One of them keeps just such
a quiet little place as did Bedreddin of old,
where the veiled young lady was so
conversationable with the owner of the silk stuffs.
I feel certain that many a good story and
strange adventure may be still heard at that
counter.

But my time is up. Portmanteaus and
carpet-bags tear me away from my meditations.
Once more we are closely packed in
vans, tearing madly over a chaos of stones
and ruts, thankful at length to find
ourselves steaming down the Nile in a dirty,
odoriferous tub of a boat towards Alexandria
and home.

EXTRACT OF FUNERAL FLOWERS.

SAID the noble Antony, in his insidious bit
of declamation over slain Caesar, "I come to
bury Caesar not to praise him"—following it
up, nevertheless, with a handsome panegyric
of the deceased. Full of such delusive
promise are honourable members about to
trouble the house with a few observations—
reviewers, reviewing not the work at the
head of their article—and certain popular
divines, mostly dissenting—whose "now in
conclusion," is but taking on horses for
another weary stage. With which class
must have claimed kindred the famous
preacher, whose sixteenthly and
seventeenthly, so distracted Major Dalgetty in
Argyle's chapel.

It was over the dead, specially, that such
holy men were privileged with longest
measure, and in libraries of old divinity, under
dust of a century's gathering, such mortuary
eloquence chiefly abounds. They usually
come forth upon the world in tract shape,
with deep mourning border garnishing the
title page, published, of course, at earnest;
request of the congregation, and are
distributed plentifully among the friends of the
deceased. Any one who should take up the
task of exploring this dismal category, would
find entertainment (lugubrious indeed), in
comparing and balancing the various modes
of "improving" a fellow creature's decease.
How one reverend panegyrist would dwell
long and wearily upon the virtues of "Our
Friend," such being theapproved form of
allusion, tracing him painfully from his mother's
arms downwards. While another—say, Mr.
John Howe, Minister of the Gospel—is so
busy with his ingenious figures and refinements,
as to utterly pretermit all allusion to
Our Friend, bringing him in unhandsomely
at the close, and despatching him in a line.
Still, if one have but patience—patience for
due sifting and winnowing—the result will
be a fine quintessence, rich in its old, full-
flavoured English, its quips, and cranks, and
quaint conceits, turned after the manner of
ancient Fuller and his brethren. Well
worthy are such treasures of being rescued
from their dusty bondage. At the same time
it will be seen that in productions of this
class, saving always the stately English of
Tillotson, Sherlock, and others of their reverend
brethren on the Bench, whose native
dignity prevented their falling into such
freedoms, there is to be found a strange
mixture of stilted pomp and unpleasing
familiarity, of quotation sacred and profane
indifferently, of broad political allusion and of
ingenious similitudes drawn from every-day
life. A few specimens of this curious manner
of treating a sacred subject may be found
not without interest, and may perhaps set
others exploring this singular vein of literature.

We are told that the Right Worshipful Sir
Humphrey Lund, Knight, departed this life
some time in the year sixteen hundred and
thirty, and over his remains, laid out solemnly
in state, the Reverend Daniel Featley, Doctor
in Divinitie, pronounced a funeral eulogium,
beginning with Seneca. "Seneca," said the
Reverend Daniel Featley, opening his
discourse, "Seneca compareth the remembrance
of a deceased Friend to a kind of Apple
called Suave Amarum—a sweet Bitter, or
bitter Sweet. Such is the fruit I am to
present you with at this present, partly bitter
and partly sweet .... Bitter in its application,
as it rubbeth your Memorie with the
consideration of your irreparable losse of
such a friend as here lieth before you: yet
sweet as it presenteth to you his invaluable
gaine, and inconceivable blisse." Then
introducing his text, he goes on: " Certainly if
ever wholesome sugar was found in a
poysoned Cane: if ever out of a Sinke there
exhaled a savour of life: if ever a bitter
Fountain sent forth a medicinall water: if
ever the Divell's Charmer set or sung a
Divine Spell, it is this in my Texte: Let my