From Pharaoh to Fellah [A descriptive account of a journey in Egypt.] With illustrations by G. Montbard, etc

Chapter I

Marseilles — Passengers — Corsica— Napoleon and Monte Christo — A political discourse — A pathetic and poetic appeal ...... 5

Chapter II

Alexandria — A well-meant effort at the poetical — An artistic discussion — Perspective and Ru-tew-shan — Odours of Araby — The bombardment — Alexandria of the Ptolemies — Rhacotis — Heptastadium — Museum — Library — The oldest street in the world — The Soma — The Paneum — Theatre — Canopic Gate — Cæsareum — Nineteenth-century Vandals — Pompey's Pillar — Serapeum . . . . . . . 14

Chapter III

Ramleh — Mahmoudieh Canal — Nicopolis — An Egyptian judge — The luxury of the law — Consular protection or free-trade in crime — The temple of Arsinoe — The hair of Berenice — An early Christian cemetery . 23

Chapter IV

Alexandria to Cairo — Egyptian railway administration — Harmless warfare — Surrender of Kasr Dawar — Blunt patriots — Taking of Tantah — Taking of Cairo ........... 30

Chapter V

The Shepheard Angel — Cairo streets — Shepheard's — Shepheard king Luigi — The Shepheard smile — The Shepheard dinner — Shepheard chickens, their pedigree and training — Cairo in twenty-four hours — Cook's tours — Cook the national schoolmaster — A large order , . , , -37 CONTENTS. VI PACE 76

Chapter VI

Cairo from Mokhattam — Seventy centuries — Cairo of " Arabian Nights " — Cairo according to Ariosto — The Muski — Khan Khalili — Cairo of the Khedives— Sequence of history — A vast plan . . . . -43

Chapter VII

Pyramids of Ghizeh — Webbe's description, 1580 a.d. — Knolles, 1600 A.D. — Sphinx — Patronising Harriet and ingenious Verulam — Emerson and Stoddard — Recent excavation — Legend of Tutmes IV. and Sphinx — Tutmes and Wilson — Fellow pilferers — Chronological discussion — Archbishop Ussher — A compromise . . . . . 52

Chapter VIII

Boolak — Museum not inappropriately situated — Khafra — The wooden man — Immutability of Egyptian type — Egyptian alternate slave and rebel — Mummies — -Sekenen Ra — Aahmes — Seti — Ramses II. and III. — Pinotem — De mortuis — Comparative chronology — Antiquity of Egyptian art — Petrified prayers — Vulgar pyramids — Hymn to Amen Ra — Tale of the Doomed Prince ....... 58

Chapter IX

History — The first man dissatisfied — Mena migrates to Memphis — Thinis the religious centre — Memphis the capital — Origin of -belief in duality of existence — First 1000 years Egyptian history, prosperous — The next 900 years, power declines — Abraham — Rise of Thebes — Egypt abandons non-intervention policy — Upper and Lower Egypt united — Prosperity of 200 years — Darkness of 1200 years — Hyksos invasion — Joseph and his brethren — Apathy of conquered — Civil war — Hyksos expelled — Thebes the capital and Memphis commercial centre . . . .71

Chapter X

The Dovecot flies south — A luxurious offer — Rail to Asyoot — The Pasha and the Nabob — Coinage and character — Secretary and interpreter — Crichton and Sara — Capitulations — Pyramids — Zeitoun — St. George and Horus CONTENTS. VII PAGE

Chapter XI

Asyoot — No kourbash, no taxes — Mosquito nets of Herodotus — Fanciful origin of the Lycopolis — Asyoot en fete — -Sub-Mudir — Egyptian in authority — Turk versus Egyptian — Can the Egyptian rule ? — Bazaars — Apathy of sellers — Asyoot trade past and present — Asyoot worthies — American Mission — Reform of Coptic Church from within and from without — Sincerity of converts — Education of pupils and education of people — Both ab initio — Asyoot Cemetery — View from Libyan range — Pasha and Mudir — Information at Asyoot vid Cairo ...... 82

Chapter XII

The Cleopatra — Capuan luxury — Aboutiz — Gow-el-Kebir — Circumstantial allegory — Disgraceful hoax of a Pope — Saint or serpent — Sara's credulous scepticism — Girgeh — Sara on the Turk — Sohag — Rivers all swindles — The Nile at a gallop — Value of official information — Cost of government in Egypt — Priapus v. Sir Gardner — Abydos — Tomb of Osiris — Roman affection for Memnon misleading — A Sunset — Keneh — Anxiety of Mudir — Sara's greatness — Dancing-girls — Osiris at Abydos — Egyptologists and myths .......... 92

Chapter XIII

Denderah — Temples not places of worship, but ceremonial — A religious ceremony — Royal road to study of Arabic — A river pedlar — Capitulations again — Pro and con — Egyptian of twelfth century — Saladin — Origin of Capitulations — Coptos — Koos — Unexpected visit — Dignity going begging — An unwilling Sheik el Beled — Results of cultivation in Egypt — Alleged over-taxation of Fellaheen — Secret of poverty of Egyptian landowners — An instance — Ignorance as to own financial position— Karnac in sight . . . . ■ . . . . .103

Chapter XIV

History — Thebes comparatively modern — Retrospect, sixth to seventeenth dynasty — Eighteenth dynasty — Foreign wars necessary — Populous No — Aahmes, Amenhoteb, and Tutmes — Expansion of Egypt — Queen Hatasou— Colonial policy — -Tutmes III. — Foreign conquests — The land of Canaan in the hieroglyphs — Amenhoteb III. — The Colossi — The first European reformer in Egypt — A religious reformation — Change of dynasty . . . . . . . . . . ■ . CONTENTS. VIII 130 138 146

Chapter XV. Page

History — The Ramesides — Ramses I. — Seti I. — Ramses II. — An heroic exploit and mild rebuke — Seti II. — The first Judenhetze — Moses a general in the Soudan — The Exodus in Scripture and papyrus — Ramses III. at home — At war — A naval battle — Rise of the Priestly power — Priest-kings of San — Egypt the bone of contention between Ethiopia and Assyria — Assyrian conquest — Thebes pillaged — Dodecharchy — Saite Dynasty — Prophetic warning against Suez Canal— Persian conquest — Visits of Herodotus and Plato — Alexander the Great — The Trinity of Thebes . . . . . . . . . . .122

Chapter XVI

Post-haste — The Pasha's energy — Sara on archæology and Ismail — Reform and popularity — -The effect on the governing classes — Effect on the governed — The date of English evacuation — Erment — Esneh — Religious toleration — Edfoo — Herodotus — "Contrariness" of Egyptians .

Chapter XVII

Silsilis — Assouan — English officers and Egyptian troops — Juvenal at Syene — An unkind prophecy — Will the Egyptian fight ? — Assouan railway station — An unwelcome telegram — Elephantine — Philce — Southward to the Cataract — The Reis rebels — Value of a Pasha's life — Rock ahead — The Reis in command — Agonising moments — Safety and baksheesh

Chapter XVIII

Southward to Luxor — Popular opinion in Egypt — Origin of Arabi movement — Gladstone and Blunt — Penultimatums — The Arabi myth — Egypt for the Egyptians — Our false start — Things done and undone — Shelley, Keats, and Leigh Hunt on the Nile — The Nabob as a poet — A new passenger

Chapter XIX

The new arrival — Sleep a luxury — The sleepless Joseph — Joseph the creator of Egypt — A new theory — Fayoum and the Land of Goshen — The Bahr Jussef the work of Patriarch Joseph — Tradition of Murtadi — The creation of the Fayoum — An original derivation — The field of Zoan and the land of Ham — Israelite exodus — Did they cross the Nile? — The blessing of Jacob — Jacob's will and testament — A new reading of an old text — Qualified approbation — Back to Shepheard's . . . .157 CONTENTS. IX PAGE 172

Chapter XX

History — Egypt under the Persians, Macedonians, Ptolemies, and Romans — Bablun — Ezra and Elijah — The Mosque el Amr — A kourbashed pillar — A strait gate — The Ommiades — The Abbasides — Tuloonides — Mosque el Tuloon — Egypt the seat of the Khalifate — El Kahira — Mosque el Azhar — Mosque el Hakim — Saladin — Ayubites — Mamluk period — Mosque el Kalaun — Mosque Sultan Hassan — Legend of the Bloody Mosque — Mosque Kait Bey — Mosque el Ghoriya — Egypt a Turkish Pashalic — The generous Egyptians — Rise of Mohamed Ali — Europe in Egypt — Ibrahim — Abbas — Said — Ismail — Tewfik — French intrigues — Arabi revolt — England in Egypt — Three policies

Chapter XXI

Cairo again — Sakkara and the Tomb of Tih — An Egyptian Pepys — Mitrahenny — Dervishes — Home again . . . . . . . 1S4 Apologue 1S9 Epilogue 191 Preface From Pharaoh to Fellah.

Prologue

. IT was in the early part of the year 188-, and in the bright courtyard ofthe Grand Hotel de Noailles, that they met. The Scribbler, an unmistakable Briton, was moodily inquiring of the waiter whether eggs in Marseilles were invariably laid addled, and whether coal was the sole ingredient of black coffee, when his eye caught that of another stranger regarding him with some curiosity. The grumblings ceased, and with an exclamation of " Sketcher, by Jove 1 " the Scribbler sprang from his chair with enthusiasm. The terrified look of the waiter at this unusual form of insanity in an Englishman recalled the latter to a sense of his nationality, and falling back into his Anglo-Saxon shell, he said quietly, "How are you, Sketcher?" The man addressed was evidently no Englishman. The light-blue eyes, under straw-coloured eyebrows, betrayed the Gothic basis as unmistakably as the light, lithe figure showed the admixture of the Latin — an unmistakable Frenchman with Burgundy in all his veins.

"And what on earth brings you here?" said the first. " Sketching, of course, old fellow ! What else have I done since the days at Clareton when you made me do your French exercises for you, and I in revenge got you a hundred lines by sketching the loves of the Integral and Differential Calculi in the fly-sheet of your ' Todhunter ' ? A sketcher with nothing to sketch, in search of the picturesque, and with at least as much right to be in my own country as you have. And you ? " " A scribbler in search of material — material that must be solid and dull, such as no man can read, so that I may obtain a reputation for untold wisdom and inscrutable depth, be voted a bore without a trace of frivolity, be elected a member of a statistical society, and eventually, in my toothless old age, be considered worthy of a seat in the Cabinet, or the editorship of a comic paper."

A SCRIBBLER AND SKETCHER 2 "And in search of it?" " I am going to Egypt. After mature consideration, I fancy that I shall find there precisely the style of subject I require. In the first place, the British public took some interest in the country last year, so naturally has none now ; then it has been so much written about, that there can be nothing new to say ; thirdly, we have vital interests in the country, so it is certain that a book on the subject will not be read ; and, above all, the subject has been so frequently discussed in Parliament, that one can rely on utter ignorance of essential facts." "What rubbish! You are going there, first, because you like it; second, because you know that it has become a British possession d peu pres ; and, thirdly — excuse the brutal frankness, — because it's the only subject on which you know anything.

Egypt ! the dream of my life ! I would give my head to come too ! " "You would like to come ! then why not join me? " said the Scribbler, with a second access of genuine enthusiasm. " You needn't," he added, relapsing into his old tone, "give your head, though you would probably sacrifice your lungs and your liver. You would get typhoid in Alexandria, of course, and probably cholera in Cairo ; but, after all, the hospitals are the cleanest places to live in in Egypt, and you might get over it. What do you say ? " " Say ! " said the Sketcher, laughing. " Why, that your invitation is so cordial, your picture so lively, that I've half a mind to take you at your word. To me, Egypt has always presented one inscrutable puzzle, one ever increasing mystery, and perhaps, if we went there together, you would help me to solve it."

"And what is the mystery? The riddle of the Sphinx? the sources of the Nile ? or the explanation of British policy in Egypt ? " " Neither ; but one more difficult than either — the connection between Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Fellah ! " " I hate all mysteries or riddles, and can't even understand the question of yours. The connection between Pharaoh and the Fellah has generally been one of stout hippopotamus hide, called a kourbash. I fear there's no difficulty in understanding that ! " " How dense you are, or pretend to be ! Listen, and I will explain myself down to the level of your practical intelligence. The Egypt of the Pharaohs is the Egypt of an art hardly absolutely inferior to that of Greece itself, and, as its parent, relatively superior to it — the Egypt of a science which may be similarly compared to our own — the Egypt with a literature, the remnants of PHARAOHS AND FELLAHS. 3 which, scant as they are, show traces of majesty worthy of Homer — the Egypt of an empire embracing half the known world.

Such is Egypt of the Pharaohs. Now turn to Egypt of the Fellah — a people who for hundreds of years have given us nothing above the literature of a Kaffir, without a trace of artistic perception, incapable of all but the lowest manual labour, unfit to govern, not a nation only, but a village — a people fallen from the highest to the lowest. Does not this contrast present a riddle worthy of solution ? " " Certainly it would," said the Scribbler, " if any such contrast existed, but it does not. You make the common error of assuming that the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Egypt of the Fellah are two distinct epochs, instead of two distinct classes, always existing side by side. Egypt of the Pharaoh and of the Fellah existed 7000 years ago, and the same Egypt exists to-day. In the Fellah there has been no change ; in the Pharaoh there has been much.

The same men to-day till the fields, tend the same cattle, work the same shadoof, make the same bricks, as in the hieroglyphs of thousands of years ago. One foreign ruler has followed another, styled either Pharaoh or Ptolemy, Caliph or Khedive, leaving behind them monuments either of their greatness or their littleness ; but this is not a change in the people, who are to-day what you have described them, and what they have ever been within the record of seven thousand years." "Then you give the Egyptian no part whatever? " " If you mean by the Egyptian the Fellah of Egypt Proper of to-day — the Egyptian of Arabi — the Egyptian of Blunt, and of the ravers of " Egypt for the Egyptians " — I give them one unbroken past, a servitude of 7000 years, during which they have been hewers of wood and drawers of water to successive conquerors."

" Even then they must have taken something from their conquerors. You so-called English yourselves are but a melange of different conquering races, and probably owe your best qualities to your conquerors." " Precisely ; but there is this peculiarity about the Egyptian : always con quered, the prey first of one conqueror and then of the other, he is himself the real conqueror in process of time. The conquering race passes over him, but leaves no trace. Just as Indian wheat or American cotton-seed, planted in Nile mud, becomes at the second crop Egyptian wheat and Egyptian cotton, taking its nature from the soil, so the human seed — mixed though it has been with Ethiopian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, the race Egyptian has always re-asserted itself and remained one and the same, physically and morally.

I believe, if you were to obliterate the race, and people the country with settlers EXPERIENCE AND PREJUDICE. 4 from Nova Scotia, you would in a few generations have the lying, licentious, and easily governed Egyptian of to-day." "Then you believe in no regeneration of Egypt?" " How can there be regeneration if there has been no birth ? Egypt as a nation has never existed ; that is, of course, as an independent nation under its own rulers. Whether such an existence is possible to her in the future, who can say ? None of her numerous conquerors has ever tried the experiment." " Are you English trying it ? " " Ah ! that is a question that requires a long answer ; but, if you are serious, come with me and study for yourself both Pharaoh and Fellah." " But are you serious ? Will you not feel like Sinbad, with a man of paints and pencils on your shoulders — a pure idealist — absolutely ignorant of all relating to the country ?

" "On the contrary, my dear fellow, you will be invaluable to me. Experience, after all, is frequently only another name for prejudice ; you shall correct me with the impartiality due to utter ignorance, and instruct me in the beauties of oriental dirt, which I have never been able to appreciate. You shall sketch with the pencil, and I with the pen ; you shall depict the Fellah, and I pro pound the Pharaoh ; you sometimes travelling into my domain and I into yours, we shall together find the happy mean." "And the result?" " That we shall amuse and instruct ourselves, if no one else, and add one more book on Egypt."

Chapter I

Marseilles — Passengers — Corsica — Napoleon and Monte Christo — A political discourse — A pathetic and poetic appeal. A FEW days later, and the Messageries steamer Mœris, with some hundreds of passengers, and its full complement of two stewards and a cabin-boy to attend to their wants, was struggling out of Port la Joilette, in face of a light head wind. Verily, in sober truth, and not satirically, the finest view in all la belle France is seen as we leave its grand old Phocæan port. " If Paris had its Cannebiere, it would be Marseilles," say its shoppy citizens ; but Marseilles could give Paris a hundred Cannebieres, and still, from the height of its 2400 years, afford to look down upon its gaudy parvenu rival. Beautiful it looks now, nestling at the feet of its golden Virgin of Notre Dame de la Garde, glittering like a sun lighthouse, OUR FELLOW-PASSENGERS. guarded by its saints militant, Forts Saint Jean and Saint Nicholas.

The Chateau d'lf and the Isle Mane" stand stern and forbidding, but beyond we see the lovely coast of Provence, rich in all colour from sun and sea and sky. The shouting, which seems necessary to safe navigation for the first few hours, was gradually toning down ; and the sailors, settling themselves into little groups against the bulwarks, and furtively smoking the vilest caporal from their short pipes, were discussing their experiences of the few days they had passed among the land-lubbers. The mono tonous throb of the engines, the flapping of the cordage, the premonitory groans of a few passengers, who were inviting sea-sickness in their cabins, and the rattling of plates in the pantry, were the only sounds which reached the Sketcher and the Scribbler as they tramped the deck, and discussed the age, station, calling, and relationship of the few passengers who had not already gone below.

There was a portly Britisher, whose sense of dignity, and a desire to prove that he individually represented a nation that ruled the waves, was struggling hard with a conviction that the waves should be ruled straighter, and that at this particular juncture they were acquiring more control than was becoming over the region covered by his capacious white waistcoat. The mingled dignity and help lessness of his demeanour recalled irresistibly the Turtle of Wonderland ; and the two fresh-looking daughters who were with him fitted naturally to their sobriquets of Turtle- Doves. A lanky American, of some six feet three, was trying hard, with the aid of a telescope of about his own length and breadth, to assume a nautical air. But Nature reasserted itself; for piteously appealing to a typical English man, who, arrayed in an ulster, was dealing death to him with every whiff of his cigar, he remarked, " We long-built men feel the motion a deal more than them as has their innards slung lower," and went below.

A scion of England's later aristocracy was maintaining his reputation as a man about town by sucking the handle of his cane ; but these, a German savant, an English clergyman, and a lady of CORSICA. 7 uncompromising principles and bonnet, were the sole occupants of the deck. Early next morning the sea had got tired of what the American called its waltz, and had settled down to the demeanour of a stately chaperone. The sun shone as it only shines in the Mediterranean, without the vulgar ostentation of the tropics, and with none of that timid reserve to which we are accustomed in England. It shone as if it shone for its own pleasure, with a desire to make things pleasant for the insignificant world below ; and the sea was grateful, for it answered with its merriest laugh, and gave itself up as a mirror to reflect His Majesty's glories.

And Corsica, lying in the distance, looked grateful ; the mountain tops were still covered with snow, but they blushed pink as the sun slanted across them, and made the dark rugged cliffs, scattered with sparse woodland, look their best. It was one of the Turtle-Doves who began it, that merry cry of " Corsica ! " and a group of muslin took it up, passed it on to a group of youngsters on the way to their regiments in Egypt, and so it went round the ship, sounding now like a feu-de-joie, now like a volley, and at last dying away in minute-guns. Corsica ! Corsica ! ! Corsica ! ! ! and the laziest rose from his seat, to be able to say that he had seen it, while the more conscientious consulted their guide-books, and a Herr Doctor in spectacles took out a chart of prodigious dimensions, to satisfy himself that Corsica stood where it did.

The Turtle was a member of the British Legislature, who felt that his mission in life was the imparting of solid information, and who was not to be deterred from the fulfilment of it. Ostensibly addressing the Doves, but generously raising his voice for the benefit of the company, he raised his right flapper, and pointing in the direction of the island, said, " The birthplace of Bonyparty, a very remarkable man." Perhaps the Sketcher felt that it was a generous admission ; at all events he said, " Yonder is Elba." The Turtle bowed, THE "TURTLE" FAMILY. and again raising his flapper, said, " And there is where he died ; " but, with sudden doubts as to his historical accuracy, he lifted the other fin, and pointed it in a direction which might be supposed to vaguely indicate the direction of St. Helena.

He observed the Sketcher taking, at the moment, a hurried note, and, relapsing from his semaphore attitude, remarked to the Doves that the young man seemed intelligent and anxious to acquire information ; "for a Frenchman, remarkably so," he added, as he glowed with a conscious feeling of toleration towards inferiors. " Look at Monte Christo," cried the Sketcher, as a rocky outline appeared on the horizon. " History and romance facing one another, and who shall say which has the best of it ? You now, Scribbler mine, who try to prove the world a thing of dry facts and figures, sewers and drains, practical man as you are, will you deny that even the creation of the wildest imagination has not been beaten by your own facts ? " " Facts, my enthusiastic friend ! What are facts ? Do you mean Thiers's facts, or Napoleon le Petit's facts ?

Do you expect me to take history as proof of facts, when you know the very man's existence is capable of logical disproof? There was probably a substratum of truth in Monte Christo, Reduce the two stories to their naked facts, and then we will judge." The Turtle, who had never heard of Whately or Dumas, found himself out of his depth ; but she, who had been already christened the Fond Dove, encouraged by the previous parental approval, smiled at the Sketcher, who lay at her feet from that hour. And the Fair Dove asked the Scribbler if he were going to Cairo ; and when he replied that he was afraid so, she quoted to him pages of " Murray," and so the acquaintance began — an acquaintance pleasant indeed, but which had its drawbacks, for the ever-conscientious Turtle saw an occasion not to be missed.

For years he had been struggling to catch the Speaker's eye, to unbosom himself on Egypt ; and though, because he had once been a Cabinet Minister, he had twice hooked that slippery optic, it had, to his surprise, only resulted in a "count out." Now was his opportunity. Drawing his heels together, protruding his waistcoat and chin, and apostrophising the nearest mast as an imaginary Speaker, he began : " In the complicated series of blunders in which, so to speak, the mummy of the Egyptian question is swathed " — when the luncheon-bell ringing, carried away his audience, and left him speaking. The next day brought the Mœris off Naples, and the glassy stillness of the sea reflecting Vesuvius, Ischia, Nisida, and Procida as in a mirror, left the most inveterate of sea-sick sufferers no excuse to remain below.

Even that BRITISH POLICY IN EGYPT. 9 never-absent female, who in any possible voyage is firmly convinced that she will be drowned in the Bay of Biscay, appeared on deck, arrayed in a bonnet which was apparently adapted to serve in case of need as a life-buoy. Is it necessary to de scribe the Neapolitan shore, from Castella mare the stately to Posilipo the beautiful? Are we not rather intent on more Eastern scenes than these, sung of from Horace to Lamartine? Need we linger over the forgotten terrors of Scylla and Charybdis, the gardens of Messina, the majesty of Etna, and the cerulean Calabrian coast? The Mœris has passed them all, and is in the waste of sea that will not be broken till she sights the Alexandria light. The party have shaken down, as the stiffest of parties will do on a sea-voyage.

The Turtle is less dogmatic ; the Sketcher is pretending to give drawing lessons to the Fond Dove ; while the Fair One is relaxing the cynicism of the Scribbler under a course of Browning. The Patrician has emerged from sea sickness with more sense of toleration towards his fellow-sufferers ; the American has vainly endeavoured to start a business connection in hides, which he explains is his specialty ; and Ulster, ever genial and content, has managed to keep the whole party in good-humour with themselves and each other. The last night had arrived ; the Mœris was due early next morning at Alexandria, and our little party were pouring forth their stores of information or imagination regarding Egypt for mutual benefit. The young Patrician was naturally a violent Radical ; and the Turtle, having made his money in soap, as decided a Conservative.

" We should never have touched the country, sir, but for your fatal Conservative interference," said the first. " We should never have made ourselves contemptible there, if we had been in power," replied the other. " Now that," said the Sketcher, " is the peculiarity of your English party politics. I invariably find that the party in power, and the party in opposition, are agreed on one point, and that is, that whatever has been done, has been done badly and under pressure from the party out of office. ' Why did you go to Egypt ? ' says one. ' Because you compelled us,' replies the other. The idea B LORD PALMERSTON. 10 that any one party, ministry, or man should have a policy of their own, is absent from English politics." "Yes," said Ulster. "'Please, sir, 'twasn't me, 'twas t'other boy,' would summarise most of our debates on foreign politics.

But perhaps it's as dignified as sending in an ultimatum one week and going off to Jaffa the next, to the tune of ' Partant pour la Syrie,' as your fleet did, my good friend." " Leaving to the British fleet the sole glory of bombarding a helpless town," said the Frenchman. " The town was not helpless, and was not bombarded," replied the other. " The forts were silenced one day, and only one shot was fired the next day, while the 'helpless' soldiery were firing the town, massacring Christians, and ill-treating even native women. On the whole, throughout this Egyptian business we behaved with singular clemency and good faith." The discussion became general and was getting warm. The Gallic blood of the Sketcher had been aroused against Ulster, and the Turtle and the Patrician were gradually working their way back into the Middle Ages, in an attempt to fix the origin of our intervention in Egypt.