LANDING.

below their knees. Every one talked at the top of his voice, and often with gesticulations so violent as to indicate that momentous matters depended on his being heard. Fortunately, Mr. Rhey, of the Hotel de l'Europe, met with our courier, and, with the aid of his servants, we were all soon disembarked with our luggage, and landed on the dock near the Custom-house. There we found a ragged, wild-looking crowd, with saddled donkeys for passengers, and camels for luggage. The rush upon us was more violent and boisterous than at Malta. We were about to be taken by force, when Mr. Rhey interfered and put us in his carriage, and pointing to a camel, it stalked forward at the bidding, kneeled down with a complaining groan, and lay quietly on its belly. The confused pile of cordage coiled up on the huge wooden packsaddle on the back of the animal was soon opened out into a net-work, spreading on the ground on each side of him, upon which our luggage being placed, and the meshes drawn up by cords so as to bring the load upon the sides and back of the beast, he rose at the bidding of his driver, and moved away. Arriving at the Custom-house, he knelt humbly before a grave, turbaned Turk, who came out in his official robes, looked upon the submissive animal, read a letter which our courier had been prudent enough to obtain at the Turkish consulate in Syra, and graciously permitted our luggage to proceed without fee or reward.

We soon found ourselves in pretty good quarters at the Hotel de l'Europe, eagerly anticipating breakfast, which we could hardly be said to have tasted for four days previously. I looked into the glass, and really felt ashamed of myself, and thought of the man who, to be sure not under quite as sober circumstances, said, when viewing himself in the glass," That is not me!" Such

a beard!

No wonder I did not attract much attention in the street, for I began to appear à la Turque. A clean shave, a general shedding off of what does not exactly belong to the body, a replacing by supplies from the portmanteau, and a good breakfast, made all right again.

A little after noon, we proceeded, with Dr. Miller, of Virginia, who had joined us at Syra, to the house over which, on that day for the first time, Mr. Tod had hoisted the American flag. It was gratifying to see it floating amid a dozen other colours of different nations, and we thought it the most beautiful of them all. We found Mr. Tod a very agreeable, intelligent man; anxious to render us any service, and in all respects worthy of the post of American consul. He is son-in-law to Mr. Gliddon, our consul at Cairo.

Upon leaving Mr. Tod's, our Nubian cicerone, who had learned in the Newcastle coal-trade to speak a little English, proposed to show us the slave market. Following the excellent maxim of never omitting to see anything which we wish to see, when it presents itself, we walked down one of the principal streets to the Turkish Quarter, and soon came to a rough stone building, not more than twenty feet square, with no opening in it but one for a door. Looking in, we found it full of boys and girls, from ten to twenty years of age. The tall, lean Nubian slave-merchant, a savage-looking black, upon hearing the voice of a Frank and an interpreter at the door, rose out of his dark corner, and stood before me, showing his ivory teeth in his eagerness to sell one of his slaves. Seeing my eye rest upon a Nubian girl, of fine full form, with a loose garment wrapped around her shoulders, he made her rise and come forward, and then uncovered her neck and chest, and pressed his hand on her person, evidently to satisfy

10

me.

SLAVE MARKET.

I asked the price-one hundred and fifteen dollars I manifested hesitation, and he called up a more delicate and sprightly-looking Abyssinian, with eyebrows painted blue; made her expose her teeth and tongue; drew aside her vesture, and invited inspection in the midst of the crowd. I narrowly watched these females during an exposure so singular to us, and could read nothing but submission and indifference to their fate. In one of them there was a slight shrinking, which nature, even under this weight of night, involuntarily compels. I turned away with horror from the scene before me, where virtue had not even the privilege of contest nor the apology of temptation. When the merchant saw it was not my intention to buy, he cried out vehemently for buksheesh (money), which I gave him, and we departed.

ALEXANDRIA.

11

CHAPTER II.

ALEXANDRIA.

Donkeys and Drivers.-Ruins of the Ancient City.-Pompey's Pillar.-Cleopatra's Needles.- Pharos.- The Palace.-A Sentinel.- Bazars.-The Frank Quarter.-Ancient Alexandria.

AT 10 o'clock on the day after our arrival, we all set dut on donkeys to see what we might, preceded by a shrewd young Nubian, with a red Fez cap, blue Turkish dress, red shoes turned up at the toes, and white stockings-himself so black that one of the company remarked that we could not see him. I had not proceeded more than fifty yards when I perceived my companions dashing up to me, and, at the same moment, feeling my little donkey spring forward, I looked behind, and saw a tall, thin Arab bounding along, and applying a stick to my steed at every jump. Each donkey had such a driver, and each driver was anxious that his master should be foremost. We all suddenly caught the impulse, and, giving way to it, had a fair race through the great square, yet creating no sensation in the town, except so far as the motley crowd was concerned, whose business it is to give way to the donkeys, even up to the wall of the houses. There are but two classes of people here, those who can afford to ride a donkey at a shilling a day, and those who cannot. Of course the rider has the road, and it seems not to be his business to see who is in it.

Passing out eastward at the Rosetta gate, we emerged into fields of ruins which extended east, south, and west, both without and within the present walls. They

12

RUINS OF THE ANCIENT CITY.

are heaps of rubbish, the remains of the ancient city, and vary in size from gentle swells to vast mounds of thirty or even fifty feet in height, on several of which batteries are erected.

In passing over these fields of desolation, we occasionally saw the old foundation walls and arches, and sometimes looked down into an ancient cellar or cistern, thousands of which lie buried below, and extend even under the modern town. These cisterns were filled during the flood in the Nile by means of subterranean canals extending to the river, and afforded delicious water to the inhabitants. In our rambles we occasionally stumbled upon a broken column of white marble or red granite, and now and then upon a fragment of a sphinx or wild boar, and upon blocks of polished marble, proclaiming what Alexandria once was. On the outskirts of the city we frequently saw fragments of beautiful columns built into mud huts, sometimes standing upright and forming the corners. In the Arab quarters the rude porticoes are often supported by red granite shafts, not unfrequently inverted, the capital being made the base. Twenty-five years since the ruins were higher; columns were often seen standing so as to indicate the forms and dimensions of buildings; even streets could be discerned, because the ruins then remained as they fell under the influence of time and the elements. Then there were only eight or ten thousand people dwelling in miserable mud huts: now there are sixty or seventy thousand; and palaces, barracks, forts, and harbours have been constructed out of the solid materials of the ancient capital of Egypt.

On the south of the city, outside of the walls, is a vast cemetery, extending from the gates towards the canal. In the farther edge of it stands Pompey's Pillar,