l with loosed top.

The crumbling quays are piled with bales of eastern merchandise,
islanded in a sea of white turbans wreathed over dark, melancholy faces.
High above the variegated crowds peer the long necks of hopeless-looking
camels. Passing through the Arab city, you emerge into the Frank
quarter, a handsome square of tall white houses, over which the flags of
every nation in Europe denote the residences of the various consuls. In
this square is an endless variety of races and costumes most
picturesquely grouped together, and lighted brilliantly by a glowing sun
in a cloudless sky. In one place, a procession of women waddles along,
wrapped in large shroud-like veils from head to foot. In another, a
group of Turks in long flowing drapery are seated in a circle smoking
their chiboukes in silence.

_II.--The Nile_

"Egypt is the gift of the Nile," said one who was bewildered by its
antiquity before our history was born (at least he, Herodotus, was
called the father of it). This is an exotic land. That river, winding
like a serpent through its paradise, has brought it from far regions.
Those quiet plains have tumbled down the cataracts; those demure gardens
have flirted with the Isle of Flowers (Elephantina), five hundred miles
away; and those very pyramids have floated down the waves of Nile. In
short, to speak chemically, that river is a solution of Ethiopia's
richest regions, and that vast country is merely a precipitate.

Arrived at Alexandria, the traveller is yet far distant from the Nile.
The Canopic mouth is long since closed up by the mud of Ethiopia, and
the Arab conquerors of Egypt were obliged to form a canal to connect
this seaport with the river. Under the Mamelukes, this canal had also
become choked up. When Mehemet Ali rose to power his clear intellect at
once comprehended the importance of the ancient emporium. Alexandria was
then become a mere harbour for pirates. The desert and the sea were
gradually encroaching on its boundaries, but the Pasha ordered the
desert to bring forth corn and the sea to retire. Up rose a stately city
of 60,000 inhabitants, and as suddenly yawned the canal which was to
connect the new city with the Nile.

In the greatness and cruelty of its accomplishment, this Mahmoudie canal
may vie with the gigantic labours of the Pharaohs. From the villages of
the delta were swept 250,000 men, women, and children, and heaped like a
ridge along the banks of the fatal canal. They