and a half. It is a wonderful sight this
strange barren expanse of stone and gravel, with here and there a
small encampment of railway labourers, after passing through the
luxuriant Valley of the Nile, teeming with production and life, animal
and vegetable. In the morning air there was a healthy freshness, which
was very delightful. At the end of our hour and a half we reached the
termination of the part of the railway which is already completed, and
embarked in two-wheeled four-horse vans (such as you see in the
_Illustrated News_), to pass over about five miles of trackless
desert, lying between the said terminus and a station on the regular
road across the Desert, at which we were to breakfast. This part of
our journey was rough work, and took us some time to execute. Our
station was really a very nice building; and while we were there a
caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, some women in front and the men
following, all mounted on their patient camels, passed by. After we
were refreshed we started for Suez; and you will hardly believe me
when I tell you, that we travelled forty-seven miles over the Desert
in a carriage as capacious and commodious as a London town coach, in
four hours and a half, including seven changes of horses and a
stoppage of half an hour. In short, we got over the ground in about
three hours and three-fourths. We had six horses to our carriage, and
a swarthy Nubian, with a capital seat on horseback, rode by us all the
way, occasionally reminding our horses that it was intended they
should go at a gallop.

[Sidenote: Retrospect of Egypt.]
[Sidenote: Egyptian ladies.]

_May 11th_.--I am glad to have had two days in Egypt. It gave one an
idea at least of that country; in some degree a painful one. I suppose
that France and England, by their mutual jealousies, will be the means
of perpetuating the abominations of the system under which that
magnificent country is ruled. They say that the Pacha's revenue is
about 4,000,000_l_., and his expenses about 2,000,000_l_.; so that he
has about 2,000,000_l_. of pocket-money. Yet I suppose that the
Fellahs, owing to their own industry, and the incomparable fertility
of the country, are not badly off as compared with the peasantry
elsewhere. We passed, at one of our stopping-places between Cairo and
Suez, part of a Turkish regiment