e been greatly impressed by it, for he gave his cattle
and his lands to the poor, and spent the rest of his life on the
greenish territory we have just passed through, in religious
meditation."

"He was a good man if he was a Mohammedan," added the lady.

"We don't believe that all the good people in the world belong to our
church," added the captain. "Do you all remember who Miriam was?"

More than half the party could not remember.

"She was the sister of Moses; and she first appears, doubtless as a
young girl, watching the Nile-cradle of her infant brother. The land
next south of Lake Timsah, made green by the water, is called Gebel
Maryam, probably after the sister of Moses. She was a prophetess; but
she found fault with the marriage of her brother, for which she was
afflicted with Egyptian leprosy. As you find it in the Bible (Numbers
xii.), Moses asked the Lord: 'Let her be shut out of the camp seven
days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut
out from the camp seven days.' An Arab legend points out this spot as
the place where she spent that time, and from which it gets the name of
Maryam."

"That's nice, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "I wish you
would tell us more Bible stories."

"Some people believe that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas were
connected in some remote age of the world, or at least that the latter
extended to the north as far as Lake Timsah," continued the commander,
without noticing the suggestion of the amiable lady. "In proof of this
supposition, certain shells found in the Mediterranean, but not in the
Red Sea, have been thrown up in digging for the canal through Lake
Timsah.

"We are approaching what is called the Serapeum," said the captain.

"What! more of them here? I thought we had used up all the Serapeums,"
said the magnate with a laugh.

"The present one is of a different sort," answered the commander. "But
the ruins found in this vicinity were supposed to belong to a Serapeum
such as several we have seen on the Nile; but Lepsius says they could
not have been a part of a temple to Serapis, but were monuments built on
the ancient canal by Darius.

"It is high ground here, comparatively speaking; and you observe that
the cutting of the water-way is through a rocky formation, with rather
high banks on each side. There is quite a little village above; and, as
it is getting dark, we shall pass the night here in the siding-basin."

"Wh