anded in Egypt as a drummer-boy with Mackenzie Fraser's force,
taken prisoner, and offered the alternative of death or the Koran.

He did not choose death, and followed the orthodox standard of the
Prophet in fierce campaigns against the Wahabees. Returning to Cairo in
triumph from his Holy Wars, Osman began to flourish in the world,
acquired property, and became effendi, or gentleman, giving pledge of
his sincere alienation from Christianity by keeping a couple of wives.
The strangest feature in Osman's character was his inextinguishable
nationality. In his house he had three shelves of books, and the books
were thoroughbred Scotch! He afterwards died of the plague, of which
visitation one-half of the whole people of the city, 200,000 in number,
were carried off. I took it into my pleasant head that the plague might
be providential or epidemic, but was not contagious, and therefore I
determined that it should not alter my habits in any one respect. I
hired a donkey, and saw all that was to be seen in the city in the way
of public buildings--one handsome mosque, which had been built by a
wealthy Hindoostanee merchant, and the citadel. From the platform of the
latter there is a superb view of the town. But your eyes are drawn
westward over the Nile, till they rest upon the massive enormities of
the Ghizeh pyramids. At length the great difficulty which I had in
procuring beasts for my departure was overcome, and with two dromedaries
and three camels I and my servants gladly wound our way from out the
pest-stricken city.

Of course, I went to see and explore the pyramids of Ghizeh, Aboucir,
and Sakkara, which I need not describe. Near the pyramids, more wondrous
and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the
lonely sphinx. Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings,
upon conquerors, down through all the ages till to-day, this unworldly
sphinx has watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the
same sad, tranquil mien. And we shall die, and Islam will wither away,
and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant
a firm foot on the banks of the Nile and sit in the seats of the
faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching
the works of the new, busy race with those same sad, earnest eyes, the
same tranquil mien everlasting.

I accomplished the journey to Suez after an exciting adventure in the
desert. There are two opinions as to t