Chapter I: Must Rove Away From Paris (4)

When we were within two hours drive of Florence, the Capitol of Tuscany and as it is also called the "Italian Capitol of fine arts," we stopped at a hotel to dine and feed horses. The landlord having ascertained that we might probably feel like paying something for what he called dinner, came into the sitting room with a live chicken by the neck and wished to know if I would order something to eat; I answered in the affirmative, when he gave his arm a twist and off went the chicken from his head, fluttering into nonentity. I informed mine host that the stage would hardly wait so long as was necessary to prepare the fowl, and he said he knew more about that than I did. A few moments after this he returned with the crawling flesh of the chicken, some wine and bread, as if he had done something really worth mentioning, and said, "now sir, here is some as fresh chicken as you ever eat, I am not like those town hotels that allow every thing to rot and stink before they sell it." A beautiful Italian girl that was a passenger in the dilligence with me, was waiting to get something, and she said to me "you sir, seem to be the lucky one." I thought it proper to give some one a small piece of the fresh chicken, but if she had not been so pretty she might have been the "unlucky one." Up over the door of this man's house was written, these German words, _Gasthof Zum New York_. It not taking as much time to dine in the Gosthof as in the stable, we took a walk to see the extraordinary phenomena of a muddy place that one can set a blazing with a match. Having arrived at Florence and hoteled myself I ascertained where the races were, and was told they would commence in thirty minutes and that my hotel window was as good a seat at the races as I could get. I looked out of the window and saw the streets clean as a floor of a log cabin, and written upon the corner "Course." That was the name of the street. A few minutes after the heralds proclaimed "that this course must be cleared" as round at the stand the horses were on the track. This street is circular, and the horses run round, till they come to where they start from, when the race is awarded to the first that comes. No riders are allowed, but the people which makes a paling round the track, hurry each horse on. The horses don't seem to know they are running a race, because the shouts of the populace at every window, corner and alley is so frightening they are trying all the time to get out of the track.

Before the races commence, a carriage with four greys is conveying an old man and wife up a street that comes to the course and branches off, and after the race, himself and lady is the first to ride on the street called "_la course_;" and after his carriage every other person has a right to enter the promenade of this man and wife, the Grand Duke, of Tuscany. In the next carriage to his was a tall lady with a beaux by her side, who, I learned, was the Princess, his daughter. Next to her carriage, was a Mr. Bullion from California, trying to pass himself off for a real American gentleman. These are the times when men who make money in the Eldorado, come home to the States to show off. He certainly had more money than brains. He had a liveried carriage. The smoke curled up in little clouds behind him, his feet were on the fore cushion of the open Calashe, and a profusion of beard adorned all the lower extremity of his face. His beard reminded me of Col. May's the captor of La Vega. The Duke halted a moment causing all in the train to halt also, when Mr. B. rose up in his carriage and looked round the Dukes carriage and told his driver to drive on. He was informed that he could not, and he looked up very wise as if he would like to know why. A few minutes after the train moved, and he said to his driver "wait a little, I don't want them to think I want to follow them." The driver stopped and got himself in trouble, for the vehicle behind him told him to drive on or get out of their way. Here the Police interfeared and ordered Mr. consequence Bullion Esq., of the El Dorado to get out of the way of gentlemen and ladies. He tried to pursuade the officers to bear in mind he was talking to an American citizen; but there was as much difference as space between the Torrid and Frigid Zone. The officer gave him to understand that he might be a Florentine, but he must get out of the way of other people. Mr. B. spit a mouthful of juice in the carriage, threw his feet on the front cushion and told the driver to go on. At first my national pride was somewhat lowered, but on second thought, I gloried in knowing that Americans are not responsible for every upstart that goes abroad and violates the rules and regulations of other communities because they were not made to suit his taste, for which no body ever cared but himself. The good people of Europe know full well that there is always thistles among roses and not all good among themselves.

American people are not as selfish as Italians. Italians will hate a man for ever for a Paul or Bioca. I got acquainted with an Italian at the work shop of Hiram Powers, and this young man volunteered to show me Florence, which would of course save me the expense of a lacquey; and my old lacquey told me he wished this man was dead, as he had deprived him of a Ducat. An English writer, tells a tale on Fontenelle thus: "He once ordered some asparagus cooked in oil for his dinner, for he was passionately fond of it; in five minutes afterwards, an abbey came to see him on some church politics, and as it is usual in France to ask ones friend how he wishes his dinner cooked and name what you have, Fontenelles told the old man what he had, and the old man said he would have half of the asparagus cooked in butter. Fontenelles thought it a great sacrafice, but said nothing. Thirty minutes afterward the abbey's valet came down in the parlor and exclaimed in great sorrow that while the abbey was washing he was taken with an apilepic fit and was dead. Fontenelles struck the youth on the shoulders and said, "run to the kitchen and tell the cook, to cook all the asparagus in oil."" Now this was indeed a selfish man. Sam Slick asked a country beaux "why it was that such a fine looking gentleman as himself was not married where so many pretty ladies were?" His answer was "when I offer my hand to a lady, she will be a lady!" This is another selfish man. An Irishman once drinking his neighbors wine was too selfish to testify his approbation of its merrits, by drinking a toast of such good wine to his neighbor. At last he was compelled to drink one, and he said, "here is to my wifes husband." The French is celebrated for eating, the Yankee for his pride, and Irishmen for their toddies.

"The lads and lasses blightly bent,
To mind both soul and body,
Set round the table weel content
And steer about the toddy."

But I have never found even wit, to justify an Italian's selfishness, only sublimity of meanness is an Italian's selfishness.

BACK TO PARIS

On my departure from Florence, I luxuriated at Lucca, the bathing resort of the Tuscans. The city is old with stout walls around it. Three hours ride in a viturino will bring you to the baths. They are beautifully located, down in a valley with craggy and fertile mountains hanging over. It was quite a place in old times, and Counts, and Dukes and other nobles used to flock here to gamble, until so much murder was committed, Lucca broke up the resort of these monied men, and until very recently it was thought to be destroyed and dead, but the Austrians, who occupy all the important places in the government of this part of Italy, wishing to resurrect something that has already been in the Italians' mind as a pleasant dream, hotels have been built, and livery stables erected, for the accommodation of the gay portion of Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Leghorn, and even Milan. On my way from Florence to Lucca I stopped at Pisa. Pisa is well known to the world as holding up one of the seven wonders of the world, to the world's travelers and sight seers. I have reference to the "leaning tower." In describing the "leaning tower," I will merely say, that the first vast and solid layer of stone is heavy enough to hold all the others laid upon it. Each layer is fastened to the one under, and though it might protrude several feet on the layers protruding side, this few feet of reaching out stone can have no power over all the rest of that same layer around this immense tower. The next layer protrudes on the same perched side of the tower, and straight over the reaching edge of its under layer; as each layer is fastened with iron spikes to its under layer, there can be no chance of even the very top falling down on the side of the tower. It leans so much on each layer as to make the top of the tower reach away over the base on the leaning side, so much so that, were it to break loose, it would fall over to the earth without touching the base or foundation of the leaning side of the tower.

The City of Pisa is well known in Italian history, by the awful contentions that used to exist among next door neighbors. Men used to fight on the top of their own houses, and go on conquering, from house to house, until they would slay as many as twenty lords, whose property would be theirs as spoils of war. One hour and a quarter's ride from Pisa is Leghorn, a city full of hats and bonnets. The bay is dotted over with little white houses, and some miles out in the sea; and I see hundreds of small boats rowing towards bath houses. The strongest merchants here are English, who ship Leghorn hats and bonnets to foreign ports, as well as their own, but the city belongs to the Hapsburg sceptre, and thousands of Austrian soldiers stand in the by ways of public places.

Twelve hours travel through the sea from here, brought me to the "City of Palaces," Genoa. It is a city on the side of a hill, with eight story palaces looking down on the sea. Before the fifteenth century it had the inducement for traders that Lyons to-day has. Silk was manufactured here in a way that astonished that age of pride; but since the invention of steam, all those scientific arts that this trade called for is but as nothing, and Italians look at our steam power machines, and then at all their scientific arts, and like the proud fowl that gazed downward, their feathers fall.

I must now pass over many places and their accomplishments, and hasten back to France, to prepare myself for the roughest voyage yet--Egypt, Arabia and Palestine. Here is the Pyramids, Memphis, (now Cairo) Thebes, the Nile, the Red sea, the desert of Sahara, Mount Sinai, the tomb of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, at Hebron, the city of David; and to Jerusalem, down to Jericho where the Jordan's muddy waters slip under the briny and sulphurous liquid of the grave God dug for Sodom and Gomorrah; and to Olives, Carmel, Tabor and Calvary; and to Damascus, the Cedars of Lebanon, Nazareth, Bethel, and the temple of Balbec or Baal.

Prussia, Bavaria, Sardinia and Saxony I will pass through without comment, more than to say that I found them separate nations of one people, save in language. However, I will say, that of all the German kingdoms the most despotic is Austria; but she hates slavery more than the "freest government in the world." Austria tyrannizes over man, but she cannot tyrannize, chattelize, and prostrate their rights with impunity, any more than Washington, Jefferson, or Henry could.

EGYPT AND THE NILE.

Five months of Paris life is again spent, and with it winter has gone by. Winter takes away and deadens the energies of a gay man, but the spring time comes, and with it the awakening of man from his lethargy, and like old Sol from the bed of the sea, in his majesty he shakes himself in all his rising glory, and puts a fiery garb between himself and all the rest of creation, to scorch the temptation that would impede his bright and manly career. Did you ever stand by the shore of a bed of water, reader, and see old Sol, like a mighty giant, rise up from his wet pillow, and seem to shake his shaggy locks, as they loosened from the abode of Neptune for more etherial spheres, and when at his journey's end, fall again on his pillow of the watery down? If you have, see me alike pulling away from the festal abode of Paris' comfort, and loosening the tie of familiar smiles, for a hard journey over a rough sea, dead lands, and a treacherous people. Will I not be willing, as old Sol when he fell on the western sea, to rest my mortal part on the flinty base of great Pompey's pillar, ere the work be "did and done?" I think I will! I have passed Marseilles, Malta in the sea, and here I am in sight of land. Well, Mr. Captain, what are you looking after in the distance with as much anxiety as the passengers, have you not been here before? "Yes sir, but every body wants to see Pompey's pillar." "That's a fact, Captain, is that his pillar?" At this stage of the enquiry, the Captain of the great steamer Ripon, laid his telescope down, and took hold of the ladies and gentlemen by the arm and shoulders, and requested that they would not be so partial to only one side of the boat, as it might dry one side of her boiler, endangering his life, as well as theirs. "Now," said the Captain, "do you all see that tall, monumental pillar, reaching upwards to the right of those barracks," when answered in the affirmative, he said, "That is Pompey's Pillar, to the left is the Pacha's palace." This was indeed the great city of Alexandria. Here it was Diogenes built the great temple of Diana; and over it suspended her in the air, by attractive and non-attractive metals, such as loadstone and others. We are coming near, and the camel boys and donkey drivers are more numerous than any other class. Having gone a quarter of a mile through mud, I am at the hotel, but I would as soon be any where else, for the accommodation is sickening. A man and camel is standing at the door, with a bullock skin full of butter for the landlord. The landlord requested him to uncamel it, and bring it in, after which he plated some of it for dinner. I enquired where this butter was made, and the Bedouin told me it was made in the desert, and in recommending it, he said it was good because he made it himself. But the most disgusting information I got of the origin of this butter, was, that it was made from camel's milk, and this very camel was one of the milch camels. The landlord came to know how we liked our dinner, and the Rev. Levi Tucker, of Boston, Mass., enquired about this butter, and mine host stuck his finger in the butter, and tasted thereof. I was eating a piece of roast beef at the time, but I could not refrain from turning it over to ask myself, "might it not be camel's meat," though I could get no answer. After dinner, four of us Americans, headed by the Rev. Levi Tucker, called to see his most serene highness, the Pacha of Egypt. We stood before his palace in the court, about an hour, after which the dragoman returned from the interior of the palace and inquired of us if we were the President, I told him not quite. He then told us that his serene highness had no complaint to make of us for calling on him, and furthermore, that he had no objection to our looking over the gardens, and at the walls of the palace, and the stable doors. Mr. Fellowes, of New Orleans, lit a cigar, Mr. Elliot, of South Carolina, threw a quid of tobacco among the flowers, and I plucked a rose, and the Rev. Levi Tucker, so far descended from his gravity, to joke by saying, "you will all be fined, look sharp!"

This city was built by Alexander the Great, more than three hundred years before Christ. It is on the Nile where it flows into the Mediterranean sea, but hardly any of its ancient splendor remains to point its site, save Pompey's Pillar, which is an immense stone column. Some parts of its walls are traced, and a few gates of granite marble are left to mark its spaciousness. Here used to pass the treasures of the Indies, but since the discovery of the route, via the Cape of Good Hope, only the mails traverse the Red sea, the Desert, and the Nile. Alexandria is the sea-port of Egypt, and Egypt is a province of Turkey. The Pacha pays the Sultan millions of treasure to rule this land himself, and also binds himself to furnish so many men in time of war, and is bound to lead them on the field if required. The present Pacha is said to be a foreign Prince, who fought his way to the throne. He lives here one part of the year, and the other at Cairo, the Capitol of Egypt. Cairo is about 275 miles from Alexandria, and as the English mail from the Indies comes there from towards the Red Sea to this place, they are now building railroads here, to facilitate conveying it to and from England and India.

EGYPTIAN KINGS OF OLDEN TIMES.

Alexander the Great, after having extended his conquest to the Indies, returned to Babylon and there died in the thirty-third year of his age. Byron, who died at this age, pronounces it fatal to genius. We will not class our Savior with men of genius, as it would not be a just comparison to his superior talent or grace, but, if what Byron says about the turn of genius be true, there can be little argument against him when these specimens can be taken into consideration. After this great man's death at Babylon, his empire was divided among the next great men of the earth, and the Egyptian division fell to the Ptolemies. They were a great family of the upper part of the Nile, perhaps the Thebiad, and are known to us as Ptolemy 1st, 2d and 3d, &c. These kings were very learned, for they possessed the library of Alexandria, and which Caliph Omar burned containing 700,000 volumes of manuscript. For six months they burnt books instead of wood to heat the water they bathed in. The word Ptolemy means a class of kings. The emperors of Rome were known successively as Cæsars. The Persians as Darius, just as the Louises of France were under the designation of one, two, and three. These titles of the throne originated with the great and kingly family of Pharaohs. Pharaoh Hophra is the famous Pharaoh that we are acquainted with in the scriptures. Pharaoh Necko is another celebrated Pharaoh. The present Cairo of Egypt, was then the Capitol of the greatest kings of the the earth, the Pharaohs. It is still a magnificent city for its age. Its population is variously estimated to be from 175 to 300,000. Some as fine edifices are found here as in any part of the East. It was the Memphis of old. Here it was that Pharaoh dwelt when he marched in pursuit of Moses, when the cloud stood between them; here it is he is, to day, a mummy, if he was not embalmed in the Red Sea, but distinguished not; here it is the famine raged furiously and men sold themselves for food to Joseph; here it was that Moses had the power to turn ashes into dust, that flew over the land with the rapidity of a lightning flash, and infested the body of man with boils, and still the king loved the spot too well to give up one single foot of his powerful sway. Here it was that Greece and Italy were schooled in all that they excelled; here it was that Moses obtained his fundamental rules of governing nations of people, for he was "learned in all the learning of the Egyptians," and where was more? and here it is some one thing is found that all the Savans' talent cannot conjecture the design of its structure, I mean the Pyramids. I was there to day, and gazed upward 470 odd feet in the air at its top. I say it because it is only necessary to see one to be confounded and awe struck. It is a spacious mass of solid layers of stone, one upon the other, and each from 25 to 32 feet in length.

What the great kings of Egypt had such a tremendous mass of stone so systematically put together for, is a mystery to all the learning of our time, and still we know it must have been for no ordinary freak of talent, intelligence and power, such a structure was reared. The old historians tell us it took twenty years to build one, with a force of 100,000 hands. These one hundred thousand men were relieved every three months by another hundred thousand. These stones were hewn from the mountains in the desert. It took ten years to make a causeway on which to bring these immense stones to the building. Each stone was originally adorned with engravings of animals, but now there is no vestige of them. The two largest in Egypt, and perhaps in the world, are these two here before Cairo. My dragoman insisted on my crawling in and seeing the wonders, but I could make nothing out of its hollow. It was lined with leather winged bats. If they were the sepulchre of kings, their bodies are long gone, though secure they might have been. In going to these Pyramids, one walks over a pavement of dead bodies. I sunk in the sand, one hundred yards from the pyramid of Cheops, and my foot caught in the ribs of a buried man, which I afterwards learned to be a mummy. Oh, mummy! when the side of the mountains was filled with the dead in old times, it was usual to take out the oldest corpse and put them beneath the earth, and in consequence, the whole plain, from the pyramids to Cairo, some six or seven miles, is macadamized with dead Egyptians, perhaps some kings and queens. I find that Pachas are reverenced here according to their wealth. If you ask an Egyptian whether said Pacha is a great man or not, he compares him to Pachas of a like means. The Pacha has all the learned men of the land around him. They now, as of old, carry their inkhorn tied to their waistband. No king, perhaps, of the earth is so absolute in will over his people as the present Pacha of the Turkisk empire. The kings of old time, no doubt, were more powerful in their absolute sway. When Thebes had one hundred gates undecayed, she could send to war, two millions of men. Such were Egyptian kings of olden time, though black.

TRAVELING ON THE NILE EIGHT HUNDRED MILES.

The boat I obtained at Alexandria, was made like a keel boat. The cabin consisted of four bed rooms with a saloon in the centre. This cabin occupied the centre of the hull of the keel, but it left space outside all around, and more at each end than at the sides. The fourteen Arabs and one captain, called Reice, would either be pulling the boat all day, or managing the sail to advantage. When the breeze blew up the Nile, they would hoist the sail and take advantage of the wind. We paid them for the boat, men, and their own food, 250 pounds for the trip, but if the trip was not made in seventy days, and it is 800 miles, we then had to pay them so much for each day over, besides this, every few days the Reice would come into the cabin for bucksheesh; we were annoyed at every stopping place for bucksheesh. The Indian of North America would translate bucksheesh "gim E money."

Our cookery was at the bow of the boat, a small space of four feet square, and our cook was an Italian of Rome. We paid him two dollars a day, because he was a European, and could not work for less, and by the way, Arabs cannot cook, and will not, for any price, cook such food as we had. Our best meat was smoked pork, and they detest this meat. Nearly every man on our boat was named Achmit, or Mahommed; but the Reice's name was Marmound. The Reice was a good old man, I have often felt as if it would afford me great pleasure to sketch his profile, when, along about noonday, he would stop our boat without consulting us, to have his head shaved. The head shavers at all the little dirt villages, would keep a look out for boats, and be ready on the bank, to shave the captain's head, and make one cent.

The speculators of the Nile could always be found on the banks at the villages, waiting to sell a goat, a chicken, or an egg. When we would stop a minute or two at a village, every few seconds, women or men would come in great haste to sell, each one trying to beat the other, some dates, cloves, or chickens. Some places, when the boat was shoving out, some great, fat and lazy Arab would come blowing and panting to the edge of the Nile with one single egg, that he had been waiting for the hen to lay. One man, to make up a dozen, squeezed an old hen until her egg bag emitted a yelk, which I refused to take as an egg. One Arab brought us some young crocodiles he had dug out of their nest, even while the old one was chasing him. To believe what an Arab says when trying to sell anything, would be a sublime display of the most profound ignorance a man could be guilty of. I have seen Arabs, however, professing an artful talent that I have no reason to believe can be found in the whole United States. I have reference to what is called snake charming.

Yesterday an Arab came aboard with a basket on his arm, and he was literally covered or clothed with live snakes. They were crawling over his shoulders, arms, breast, and whole body in general, and his head was an emblem of Discord. Serpents looked in all directions, while their forked tongues signaled their wrath, like little flashes of lightning. This was a "snake charmer," and we concluded we would test his skill, and gave him a quarter to go to the mountains and call out of the rocks some of his prey. Having arrived, he sang a melancholy strain like that of a dove in spring time, occasionally raising his voice like a lonely crane, and after ten or fifteen minutes of this proceeding, brought some three serpents from the crevices of the rock, and quietly walked to them and they crawled on his arm. He offered to guarantee one crawling on me without biting, but I was not willing to make any contract to that effect. He returned to the boat with us, and one of our Arabs, who was a very incredulous man, told us that the "rascal" was possessed of no power at all over the wild serpents, but had placed these serpents there before, and that they were taught to come when called. But this Arab of ours was jealous of the interesting entertainment we enjoyed. The charmer knew not where we were taking him until we told him to call the snakes. The Reice of our boat was afraid the charmer would get too much bucksheesh, and called on us in our cabin to inform us, that some months before he had seen this man with the same serpents, and I asked him how he distinguished the serpents, and he said, "by their color." He gave me to understand, that though we were very learned this rascal could fool us, but with him it was very different. He said that "old Marmoud's beard was white, but few men knew more than he did." He appealed to our generosity, to keep some of the bucksheesh, "don't want the rascal to get all the bucksheesh."

At night the jackalls are quite noisy. Two came within fifty yards of our boat, and played their howling notes some time. No Arab takes notice of jackalls, foxes, or crocodiles. I went into six sugar houses on the Nile, and all owned by the Pacha. No man can show his money here without getting it borrowed. The man who refuses to loan it to the Pacha when asked, cannot live. A wise man and his money must part.

THEBES AND BACK TO CAIRO.

Two great streams rises in the Mountain of the Moon, in Abyssinia, and unites in Nubia, and flows through Egypt, and makes what we call "The Nile." This splendid old stream flows on gradually as in the days of Pharaoh, and Jupiter Hammon; splendid, because in those days its banks were walled with rich cities. The remains of Thebes stand like Catskill mountains, unshocked. I mean the remains, the renowned Memnonian, Luxor and Carnack. The tall columns of the Memnonian is here like untold riddles to be explained. The paintings are as bright to-day as any modern picture I have seen in the Louvre, at Paris. The carved chariots on the walls convey the idea, "I see Remesees and Pharaoh's on the battlefield." These chariots seem to have carried only two or three warriors with their spears in the battle. On the outside wall of this temple is carved, the exact likeness of a "man's individual part," varying from 6 to 13 inches in length, and hanging beneath each is two balls, seeming to be connected like the two big parts of a heart, and both gradually sloping down together. It is supposed, that cutting off these parts of man was the punishment or qualification required to degrade those gents of the Remesee court, who were too polite to the ladies. But why gallant gentlemen should be treated so I shall leave for the conjecture of the learned reader. Some light may be thrown on this subject by reference to the preceeding page, on Constantinople's manner of preparing gentlemen's nature for taking ladies to the baths.

These great temples are situated so that it takes a man many days to see them. They are on different sides of the Nile. Carnack is a tremendous mass of splendid ruins. Owls and foxes dwell within; and I saw a pretty bird, half asleep, that a man told me was a whip-poor-will. It is no pleasant thing to stop in these ruins a few hours alone, unless a man was possessed of no imagination at all. On one of the splendid painted broken columns that ran up through the hall or court of the unapproachable Pharaoh, Ptolemy, or Remese, a fox or hawk had been breakfasting on a rabbit, and martins had their nests perched on the side of the spreading columns that supported the beams of solid stone, of 12 feet wide and 20 long, over head. These ruins were sights of wonder to behold. Thebes could send to war 20,000 men from each of her hundred gates, making in all two millions of men. But to-day her walls cannot be found; we know her but by Carnack, and the rest of her temples, and the stadium of the Nile.

England and America has a consul here. He is a colored man named Mustapha. He insisted on us taking dinner with him before we left, and so we did. He had what is called a fashionable Egyptian dinner of to-day. The goat was cooked whole, and in a standing posture, and when placed on the table, uncarved, the strongest fingered man gets the best part with more ease and facility than the weaker. Whoever has seen a skinned calf's head hanging by a butcher's stall, can imagine how melancholy this cooked goat's head looked.

Mr. Mustapha had no chairs or tables, but he had ample room round the tray in the middle of the floor, where this goat is placed. We all squatted as well as possible and dined at nine o'clock at night; each one of us had hold of Mustapha's goat at the same time. The Consul was indeed skilled in obtaining long pieces of tenderloin. If he is as well posted in diplomatic affairs as in finding tender parts of a goat, he will do honor to England and America, or Memphis of old. About 12 o'clock Mustapha said, "all the dinner was eaten up, and now we would have some dancing." The girls were called in, and they stocked their bodies, and made a general preparation with their bells tied to their waist. This was called tuning up. They went off in their different strains, as you have heard three or four sleigh turnouts, one after the other, and all getting together. Such a jingling; such screwing in and out of bodies; such a gesturing; and such a quivering of the bodies from their necks to their knees, is only to be imagined. One girl stuck her head between her legs in front, whilst another done the same over backwards. A few minutes afterwards, we eat some dates, smoked some pipes, and drank some arrack, a liquid used here as we use whisky, brandy, and gin, to raise the spirits. The feast over, Mustapha informed us that it was usual to pay his cook and waiter for their services. The next day he also informed us that it was usual to pay him for being our consul, as he performed this service for our government gratis. This is his short cut to the meeting house of distinction and gain. We paid, hoisted our sails, rowed away, and arrived in three weeks afterwards, back to Cairo.

CAMELS, THROUGH THE DESERT.

For three of us, eighteen camels were procured, to convey us, provisions and tents, through the desert. To every camel was a master, who loads and unloads food and water.

The remainder of my travels will only be described as objects are found: no comments on their past or future.

Having at ten o'clock, the first time in my life, mounted a camel, I found it hard work to hold to the old riggings on his back. We went out on the commons to the east of Cairo, and turned the head of the camels towards Suez, on the Desert, and awaited their own movements. The youngest went out in all directions, as far as a quarter of a mile off; they would follow one another a few minutes, until they would lose confidence in the ability of the leader to perform his duty, and take the direction of another. After half an hour spent in this way, some of the young leaders would wait and look at the old camels and dromedaries until they would come along side, and wait quietly until the older would take the lead, and in five minutes the whole caravan from all directions would pull for his course, like the different branches of a flock of wild geese that had been disturbed by some unnatural disturbance; in twenty minutes all would be in a straight line for Palestine. At five o'clock in the evening we camped for the night, and while supping before our tent doors, the English mail caravan came along from Suez with the India mail, some 400 camels; they had left the red sea the day before, and were getting along very well. The English are great people to meet in a strange place, as they take pleasure in imparting all the news likely to add to ones comfort. They asked us about Her Majesty's government, and also about French feelings. We offered them something to drink, which they refused, and bade us good day and went a couple of hundred yards farther and camped. Next morning they were off before we waked up. The next day we arrived at the red sea, crossed over, and wended our way to Mount Sinai. We found, at the base of Mount Sinai, two Bedouins, like lost men from their tribe, looking about as if they were hunting something in their lonesome vallies. They rode Arab steeds instead of camels, as we did in the Desert. I had always believed that the desert was an arid sandy plain, but I found it more hill than plain. Occasionally we would see a couple of gazelles on the mountain crag, but always ready to run.

We stayed at the convent of St. Catherine some days with the old monks, and bought some treasures of them in the way of manna, put up here for pilgrims in a little tin box, like mustard boxes, and also some canes of different kinds of shrubs growing round about here. It takes about an hour to wake the monks up from their studies, breakfast or sleep. They lowered a sort of a hamper basket for us to seat ourselves in, one at a time, and they pulled us up. Next morning we prepared our luncheon for an ascent; about twelve o'clock we reached the top where Moses held the stones. The guide showed us many little altars and curious places, said to be sacred places, to different ages of which he named. I could plainly see that his information was merely traditionary, without the least shadow of history for support. As we ascended, he showed a hole in the ground where the sons of Levi buried their dead. I asked him how he knew this was the history of this hole, and he said that a powerful Sheik told him this. He meant the chief of a tribe of Bedouins. They are called Sheiks. The Sheik who gave this important information was a very powerful Sheik, and consequently, his opinion carried great weight, though he could not read. He often settles questions more important than this to the Arabs. The next day, while branching out from Sinai and the Red Sea, we encountered a desperate tribe of Bedouins, who demanded of us a bonus, in genuine coin, for permission to travel through this territory. We refused to pay, and the Sheik declared that we should. Our guide, whose name was Como, said many years ago he traveled along the range with one Dr. Robinson who wrote a book, and was attacked by this rascally Sheik before, and refused to pay then, and would refuse now. He bullied up to the Sheik, and told him he would report him to the authorities of Hebron, who would send his complaint to Constantinople, to the Sublime Porte. The Sheik was intimidated, and rode off in the Desert towards Petra. After thirty-five days in the Desert, we came to Hebron, the burial ground of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Here we quarantined for three days. After traveling all these thousands of miles, the Arabs would not let us enter the mosque built over these distinguished men's bodies. Our camel drivers could enter, they were Arabs, and would not defile the mosque.

JERUSALEM, JERICHO, AND DAMASCUS.

Passing by the mosque whose treasure is the Patriarch's bodies covered with golden robes, the boys and women threw stones at us, that we might know we were approaching too near their sacred dead. They pride themselves on these sacred relics, and allow no man to pass by without seeing their fidelity displayed. Our drivers explained to us all they knew of the magnificence inside, but that was poor explanation and satisfaction, as it had also to be translated. As we left the city on our way to Jerusalem, we were shown some two or three olive trees nearly three thousand years old. About an hour after emerging from the city of Hebron, we met an Arab, and inquired the distance to the Holy City, and he said, "about half a day's camel ride." All miles are counted here by some animal's hour's travel. At one o'clock we were passing over rolling mounds adorned with olive trees. One was higher than the rest, and from its summit I saw Jerusalem only half a mile ahead. Its towers were few and scarce, and its walls were parched and charred. The mosque of Omar's dome glittered in the sun beam, and this Mahommedan sanctum towered above all the other buildings in this city, that was once the "glory of the world," because of its godliness. Yes, the mosque of the Turk looked down upon our glorious sepulchre, as it were with contempt. I made my way straight to our humble edifice, and fell upon the marble slabs that once entombed the flesh and blood of the greatest man ever tabernacled in a body of flesh. In the middle of the Latin Church, which means the church we christians of the world built over Calvary, is another small house like a large sepulchre, such as I have seen in New Orleans, or _Pere la Chaise_, at Paris, and in this little house are the sides, bottom, and cover, of the tomb of our Savior, just as it was taken from the earth and placed on this stone floor, before this little house and the large church were built around it. Two men were inside of the little house, one at each end of our Savior's tomb, giving wild flowers to the visitors. These flowers are fresh, and placed daily on the tomb beside the burning candles, that burn night and day on this consecrated marble tomb. An English lady, who came in before me, was prostrated on the floor, kissing the tomb with great devotion. She was a lady of rank who had pilgrimed here, and now had given way to her devoted feelings towards the dull, cold marble that once, in the midst of thousands of enemies, our Savior had lain in, uncorrupted, though bleeding and mangled.

The monks were passing to and fro in all directions. The best place to locate for a short time, is in the convent attached to the church; they make no charges against a pilgrim, but no pilgrim can come here unless rich, and no rich man will go away without giving something to so sacred a place as the tomb of our Savior.

These monks are strict in all their rules, and allow none to be treated with indifference; they allow no chickens, ducks, cats, or dogs in the convent; as by their courting habits they might lead the mind of man from spiritual reflections, to groveling desires. These are undisputed facts, and I got them from the lips of a monk's aid. I walked round the walls of this celebrated city in one hour and a quarter, though when Titus took it, it contained about 2,000,000 souls. But as Jerusalem was considered by the Jews impregnable, the people from all the villages round about came here for safety. This accounts for its having so many people when taken. I am mounting a small Arab steed to go to Bethlehem. I can see it from here. In an hour after leaving Jerusalem, I passed by the tomb of Lazarus, and rode up to the walls of the convent at Bethel. It was closely shut on all sides. Our guide demanded in an authorative tone and air for entrance. A bare footed monk unlatched the door, and we walked in, and were carried direct to the altar built over the manger. We saw burning candles and flowers strewn around. We came out and wended our way towards Jericho, it could be seen in the distance. We came to a spring whose water was running freely, and the guide had the impudence to tell me that the cause of this water running so freely, was because the jawbone that Sampson fought so bravely with was buried here. He had told me another absurd story about Jeremiah's cave, but I was not inclined to believe anything I heard from the people about here, because I knew as much as they did about it. I came to Jerusalem with a submissive heart, but when I heard all the absurdities of these ignorant people, I was more inclined to ridicule right over these sacred dead bodies, and spots, than pay homage.

The same evening I camped at Jericho, about a hundred yards from where the Jordan empties into the Dead Sea. We took a bath in the Jordan, and tried some of its water with _eau de vie_, and found it in quality like Mississippi water. Then before we dressed, we took another in the Dead Sea. I cannot swim, but I could not sink in this sea; it is a strong brine of sulphur and salt, and stronger in holding up substances than the Mediterranean or the Atlantic. No living creature can live in it; the Jordan washes an immense quantity of small perch-like fish into it, but they instantly die, and are thrown out on the banks of the sea within twenty feet of the Jordan. The Jordan is frightfully rapid, but so narrow that a child could throw a stone across any part of it within a mile of the sea. Rabbits and birds are plentiful here; in the shrubbery in the valley of the Jordan I killed doves and quails enough for supper. Jericho is not worth mentioning, as there is not even a temple here left by time. The ground is covered with broken bricks and stones.

Having stayed in the city of Jerusalem seventeen days, I leave it, never wishing to return again, and am now leaving the wall, Calvary, Moriah, and Olivet, to see Gallilee, Tabor, Nazareth, and Damascus. I saw the sea, as no doubt it was when the whale vomited; I saw the little house where water was turned into wine, I saw Tabor, ascended and took my chances with the wild boar; I returned from Tabor to Nazareth, where I had left my baggage and provisions; eat some camel's meat. The soldiers were preparing for army stores, and I hurried on to Damascus to hear something about the decrees of St. Petersburg against the sublime Porte. The Turks all through Palestine were preparing for war; they said this year, 1853, was going to be a memorable one; the crescent and the cross were to shine gloomily, for the hungry Russian bear was seeking food beyond his lair. About the 1st of July I arrived at the Paradise-plain City of Damascus, and bought a blade. I bought some silks, and old swords, celebrated as Damascus blades were, with one I cut a half a dollar into two pieces. The ambassadors of different nations were informing their country's subjects that it was best to be among the missing, and said that some Russians were here yesterday, but were now gone to parts unknown. These ambassadors were more frightened than their subjects; one said to Col. Fellowes and myself, "as soon as the Sultan declares war, no christian will be allowed to pass the barrier of his boundary," and as this is said to be a quarrel on religion, every christian head might fall "that is found where waves the little Turkish flag of the crescent and the cross." I packed my trunk, paid my bill, and left Damascus and its sights, and traveled towards the Mediterranean. I looked at my old Damascus blade, and thought of those sharp scymaters, like reap hooks, and as I could see one in my imagination, I felt all over, and spurred towards Joppa.