be that of
Labuan or Jeddo.

But at the present moment, Grand Cairo has the vogue. Now it had so
happened during the last winter, and especially in the trying month
of March, that Arthur Wilkinson's voice had become weak; and he had
a suspicious cough, and was occasionally feverish, and perspired
o'nights; and on these accounts the Sir Omicron of the Hurst Staple
district ordered him off to Grand Cairo.

This order was given in October, with reference to the coming winter,
and in the latter end of November, Arthur Wilkinson started for the
East. Two articles he had first to seek--the one being a necessary,
and the other a luxury--and both he found. These were a curate and
a companion. The Reverend Gabriel Gilliflower was his curate; and
of him we need only hope that he prospered well, and lived happily
under the somewhat stern surveillance of his clerical superior, Mrs.
Wilkinson. His companion was George Bertram.

About the end of November they started through France, and got on
board the P. and O. Company's vessel at Marseilles. It is possible
that there may be young ladies so ignorant as not to know that the P.
and O. is the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and
therefore the matter is now explained. In France they did not stop
long enough to do more than observe how much better the railway
carriages are there than in England, how much dearer the hotels are
in Paris than in London, and how much worse they are in Marseilles
than in any other known town in the world.

Nor need much be said of their journey thence to Alexandria. Of
Malta, I should like to write a book, and may perhaps do so some
day; but I shall hardly have time to discuss its sunlight, and
fortifications, and hospitality, and old magnificence, in the fag-end
of a third volume; so we will pass on to Alexandria.

Oh, Alexandria! mother of sciences! once the favoured seat of the
earth's learning! Oh, Alexandria! beloved by the kings! It is of no
use. No man who has seen the Alexandria of the present day can keep
a seat on a high horse when he speaks of that most detestable of
cities. How may it fitly be described? May we not say that it has all
the filth of the East, without any of that picturesque beauty with
which the East abounds; and that it has also the eternal, grasping,
solemn love of lucre which pervades our western marts, but wholly
unredeemed by the society, the science, and civilization of the West?

Alexandria is fast b