r in our country would be loaded on carts. Just now we
might have thought ourselves in Holland as we passed along those gray
stretches of submerged ground, but the illusion is soon dispelled; as
the camel swings along the canal bank, you feel that you are approaching
Cairo, and not Amsterdam.

Next come horsemen, bestriding thin, but spirited horses; droves of
small donkeys, their masters perched on their cruppers, almost on their
tails, their legs almost touching the ground, ready to be used in case
the tricky animal falls or jibs, or even indulges, as it often does, in
a roll in the dust of the road. In the East the ass is neither contemned
nor considered ridiculous as it is in France; it has preserved its
Homeric and biblical nobility, and every one bestrides it without
hesitation, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, women as well
as men.

Now along the canal comes a charming group: a young woman robed in a
long blue mantle, the folds of which fall chastely around her, is seated
upon an ass which a man, still vigorous but whose beard is already
streaked with gray and white hairs, leads carefully. In front of the
mother, who supports it with one hand, is a naked child, exquisitely
beautiful, happy and delighted at his trip. It is a picture of the
Flight into Egypt; the figures lack nothing but a fine golden halo
around their heads. The Virgin, the Child Jesus, and Saint Joseph must
have looked like that, and so must their flight have been in the living
and simple reality; their equipage was not much finer. What a pity that
some great painter, Perugino, Raphael, or Albert Duerer, does not happen
to be here.

Damanhur, which the railroad traverses, looks very much as must have
looked the ancient cities of Egypt, now buried under the sand or fallen
into dust. It is surrounded by sloping walls built of unbaked bricks or
of pise which preserves its earthy colour. The flat-roofed houses rise
one above another like a collection of cubes dotted with little black
holes. A few dovecotes, the cupolas of which are whitewashed, and one or
two minarets striped with red and white, alone impart to the antique
appearance of that city the modern aspect of Islamism. On the top of the
terraces women, squatting on mats or standing in their long robes of
brilliant colours, are looking at us, no doubt attracted by the passing
of the train. As they show against the sky, they are wondrously elegant
and graceful. They look like st