Chapter I: Part 1

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 710. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1877. PRICE 1½_d._]

PREDOMINANT DELUSIONS.

Seeing is believing! Such is an old saw, not usually called in question, and yet it is exceedingly fallacious. A great many phenomena seemingly true by the eyesight are not true at all. Ignorance and prejudice have led to very extraordinary mistakes. We speak of the sun rising and setting, because it appears to do so, but it neither sets nor rises. The earth turns in front of it like a roast turning before a fire. A conjurer will clearly shew you that he will bring any number of eggs out of an empty hat. He only brings them out of his sleeve, where they were cunningly concealed. And so on with a great many other illusions, all seemingly fair and above board, but in which we are imposed on either by our senses, or by some fallacy in reasoning. Less than two hundred years ago, courts of justice were hanging and burning thousands of old women for being witches--all on a sort of evidence which in the present day would only be laughed at. The world now knows better than believe such trash, but it took a long time to learn; and even yet this highly experienced and much complimented world occasionally falls into the most absurd crazes; or perhaps we should more correctly say, there are large numbers of tolerably educated but credulous people who with a taste for the wonderful are ever ready to believe in any kind of nonsense that turns up. These worthy individuals are, of course, not without excuse. Starting with the principle that there may be forces in nature which science has as yet failed to disclose, we should be cautious in asserting that any particular phenomenon that seems incomprehensible is a result of mere illusion or imposture. Let every mysterious demonstration, they say, be impartially inquired into. Quite correct. The misfortune, however, is, that before the matters in question have been examined impartially by the light of science, the craze gets ahead, and many persons weakly allowing themselves to be carried away by their feelings, get painfully compromised, and are by the more cool and cautious part of mankind set down as little better than--fools. Very hard! But the warning offered is useful. If people of good standing will believe in absurdities without proper examination, they must take the consequences.

We have been led to make these remarks by a perusal of the lately issued work, _Mesmerism, Spiritualism, &c., Historically and Scientifically considered_, by Dr W. B. Carpenter. In this ably written and eminently readable small volume, the author brings to bear a long experience in scientific inquiry into the popular crazes and impostures of the last forty years, beginning with Mesmerism and Table-turning, and ending with Spiritualism in the several shapes it has assumed. We commend the book to the serious consideration of the credulous. Tracing the history of marvels of different kinds, Dr Carpenter states that the whole has been 'a long succession of epidemic delusions, the form of which has changed from time to time, whilst their essential nature has remained the same throughout; and that the condition which underlies them all is _the subjection of the mind to a dominant idea_. There is a constitutional tendency in many minds to be seized by some strange notion which takes entire possession of them; so that all the actions of the individual "thus possessed" are results of its operation.' Placed on this footing, the Predominant Delusion, be it a belief in witchcraft, mesmerism, or spiritualism, is a kind of monomaniacal frenzy. An absurd idea has got possession of the individual, and no reasoning with him to the contrary will have any effect in driving it out. He will absolutely get out of temper if his fanciful notions are so much as questioned. Usually the monomania spreads; and the more who suffer themselves to be affected, the keener and more demonstrative does the delusion become. Certain frantic religious ferments in past and recent times have been due to nothing else than strange contagious influences, of which, after a time, when passion has subsided, all are pretty well ashamed, and fain to stifle out of disagreeable remembrance. We happen to have seen several of these prevalent crazes, droll in some respects, but very pitiable. After such mental disturbances, things, happily, shake themselves right at last, and all goes on as usual. The fever has subsided.

Often, able and estimable men suffer themselves to be affected by the prevailing craze, and lead on others as imitators. It is now about forty years since, when by invitation to a friend's house, we were present at an evening séance in which an eminent professor at one of our universities entertained the company with what he confidently believed to be mesmeric experiments, such as sending persons to sleep, or rendering them temporarily mute by bidding them 'tie their tongue.' Here was a man skilled in a branch of physical science, but of eager temperament and with a rage for novelty, lending himself indiscreetly to certain popular delusions which had originated in the crazed fancy of a charlatan. Mesmeric experiments of this sort were for a time a favourite amusement. They reminded us of the superstition in the old legends, in which 'glamour' is said to have been cast over weak-minded individuals. This ancient glamour consisted in producing by looks and gestures a negation of self-assertion. The operator threw the patient into a kind of spell-bound or dreamy condition without any power of correct reasoning. It was the conquest of the strong and resolute will over the weak and irresolute, through the effects of a kind of jugglery.

Mesmeric sleep, as it is called, is ordinarily produced by seemingly mystic passes of the hands, and an intense concentration of looks on the eyes of the person operated upon. In it there is nothing marvellous. Dr Carpenter explains that it 'corresponds precisely in character with what is known in medicine as "hysteric coma;" the insensibility being as profound while it lasts as in the coma of narcotic poisoning or pressure on the brain; but coming on and passing off with such suddenness as to shew that it is dependent upon some transient condition of the sensorium, which, with our present knowledge, we can pretty certainly assign to a reduction in the supply of blood caused by a sort of spasmodic contraction of the blood-vessels.' This explanation, on a physiological basis, considerably reduces the mystic character of those mesmeric marvels in which the late Dr Elliotson indulged at his public séances in Conduit Street. It does not, however, as we imagine, detract from the medical value that may be attached to the calming of the nervous system by what is spoken of as mesmeric sleep. Mr Braid, a practising surgeon in Manchester, ingeniously fell on the device of producing a profound mesmeric slumber by simply causing individuals to fix their gaze determinedly at a cork stuck at the top of their nose. It was not surprising that people should have been lulled by being subjected to this species of Hypnotism. Ordinary sleep may in most instances be induced by keeping the lower extremities perfectly still, and determinedly fixing attention on the act of breathing through the nostrils. Speaking from experience, we offer this as a hint to the habitually sleepless.

In the amusing book before us, the author shews how clairvoyants have imposed on public assemblies by tricks, which could be seen through by sceptical observers. Miss Martineau, as is well known, had a profound belief in the marvels of mesmerism. This lady had a servant, J., to whom was imputed wonderful powers of clairvoyance. On one occasion, while in the mesmeric sleep, she gave 'the particulars of the wreck of a vessel, of which her cousin was one of the crew; as also of the previous loss of a boy overboard; with which particulars, it was positively affirmed by Miss Martineau, and believed by many on her authority, that the girl could not have been previously informed, as her aunt had only brought the account to the house when the séance was nearly terminated. On being asked, says Miss M., two evenings afterwards, when again in sleep, "whether she knew what she related by hearing her aunt telling the people below," J. replied: "No; I saw the place and the people themselves--like a vision." And Miss Martineau believed her.' After all, the girl was proved to be an impostor. A medical friend, on making a rigorous investigation, discovered 'unequivocally that J.'s aunt had told the whole story to her sister, in whose house Miss M. was residing, about _three hours before the séance_; and that though J. was not then in the room, the circumstances were fully discussed in her presence before she was summoned to the mesmeric performance. Thus not only was J. completely discredited as a seer, but the value of _all_ testimony to such marvels was seriously lowered, when so intelligent a witness as Harriet Martineau could be so completely led astray by her prepossessions as to put forth statements as facts, which were at once upset by the careful inquiry which she ought to have made before committing herself to them.'

A preconceived determination or proneness to believe in the reality of any seeming marvel without any other evidence than the senses, goes a great way to explain the stories that are fondly cherished by the dupes of spiritualism. The error lies in taking things for granted. At one time people were all agog as to the wonders of table-turning, and it is amusing to remember how the wonder was speedily exploded by the appliances suggested by Faraday. He conclusively shewed that the operators, however honest, unconsciously exerted a muscular action, causing the table to turn in the direction previously conceived. The whole thing was a curious piece of self-deception. Dupes of spiritualistic manipulators are similarly self-deceived. They go to séances in the fond hope of seeing incomprehensible marvels by 'mediums' and table-rappers, and come away believing that all has been real, instead of being only tricks worthy or unworthy of a conjurer. Certainly, at no séance of spiritualists have the performances excelled the wonders effected by those adepts in conjuring, Maskelyne and Cooke.

Although exploded and discredited, table-turning has latterly come up in the new form of planchette, a fashionable toy alleged to be endowed with singularly mystic qualities. Consisting of a small and easily moved board, in which a pencil is stuck with the point downwards on paper or slate laid on a table, the machine is said to be capable of answering questions put to the operator who presses on the board with his hands. No doubt, the pencil will write answers as required, but it does so only by the conscious or unconscious muscular action of the hands on the board. This weak device of pretending to get answers to questions by the agency of an inanimate piece of wood and a pencil, has been resorted to by real or sham believers in spiritualism; and we are presented with the melancholy spectacle of decent-looking ladies and gentlemen sitting gravely round a table affecting to hold a conversation with beings in the unseen world.

Just as mesmerism lost its reputation as a branch of psychology, so has spiritualism begun to be estimated at its true value. It was always very much against it, that its professors held their séances in darkened apartments, and that for the most part they took money for the display of their wonders. The thing became a trade, and so it would have continued but for the prosecution and conviction of persons who stood guilty of imposture, and of taking money under false pretences. To add to the discomfiture of trading spiritualists, their tricks have been exposed in the book, _Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism_, by D. D. Home, who, however, lets it be known that he is among the few genuine professors of the art whose operations are alleged to be beyond suspicion! As shewn by Dr Carpenter, deception is not confined to those who practise for gain. He speaks of young ladies who take pleasure in imposing on elderly persons by tricks of an ingenious kind. 'I could tell,' says he, 'the particulars, in my possession, of the detection of the imposture practised by one of the most noteworthy of these lady-mediums, in the distribution of flowers which she averred to be brought in by the "spirits" in a dark séance, fresh from the garden and wet with the dew of heaven; these flowers having really been previously collected in a basin up-stairs, and watered out of a decanter standing by--as was proved by the fact, that an inquisitive sceptic having furtively introduced into the water of the decanter a small quantity of a nearly colourless salt (ferrocyanide of potassium), its presence in the dew of the flowers was afterwards recognised by the appropriate chemical test (a per-salt of iron), which brought out "Prussian-blue."'

Other instances are presented of deceptions practised in private séances; but for these and much that illustrates the whole tenor of the delusion, we must refer to the work itself. We restrict ourselves to quoting only one, but a very pertinent remark: 'It is affirmed, such exposures _prove_ nothing against the genuineness of any new manifestation. But I affirm that to any one accustomed to weigh the value of evidence, the fact that the testimony in favour of a whole series of antecedent claims has been completely upset, seriously invalidates (as I have shewn in regard to mesmeric _clairvoyance_) the trustworthiness of the testimony in favour of any new claimant to "occult" powers. Why should I believe the testimony of any believer in the genuineness of D's performances, when he has been obliged to admit that he has been egregiously deceived in the cases of A, B, and C?'

For this instructive and admirably written work, offering a lucid philosophical explanation of the source of Predominant Delusions, which are apt to be turned to a bad account by the designing, and are in every sense mischievous, as conveying erroneous notions of natural phenomena, the learned author deserves the hearty thanks of the community.

W. C.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXXV.--A TWELVEMONTH AFTER.

A glorious morning in early August. I was standing in a large cheerful room, from the windows of which was an extensive view of beautiful country, hill and dale, clothed with the rich ripe fullness of fruit-time, while to ear was borne 'the distant cries of reapers in the corn--all the live murmur of a summer day.'

I was attiring myself--or I ought rather to say being attired--for a wedding, attended right royally, no less than twenty handmaidens hovering about me, each eager to do something towards my adornment; and each as desirous that I should look my very best as I was myself, which is saying a great deal. Never was slave of fashion more anxious to make an effective appearance than was I on this bright August morning. But even I began to be satisfied as the process of adornment went on, and I was gradually transformed from a sober brown chrysalis into a brilliant butterfly. A bright blue silk dress, an elegant lace cloak, white bonnet with blush roses, &c. &c. Everything, be it understood, of the very best that money could buy, and made in the latest mode, there not being a sombre colour or faded shred about me. 'All new and fresh and bright, as befits a butterfly!' I ejaculated, contemplating myself with a glad smile.

And then there was the one thing--ah, I knew it now; my prayers _had_ been answered! Even allowing for the flush of excitement, this was not the face of a twelvemonth ago smiling gaily back at me from the dressing-glass. The eyes had lost their mournfulness, the mouth had become used to smile, and the whole face was full of life and colour. 'Yes; it all matches beautifully,' I acknowledged, in smiling assent to the exclamations of my attendants. 'But I require care, you know,' as they all pressed about me; 'not a rose must be crushed. And it is to be hoped that I shall not forget that I wear a train, and spoil the effect by falling over it;' which raised a laugh amongst my handmaidens, as royal wit should. Then being pronounced 'finished,' I went out into the gallery, and descended the broad staircase (my home was one of the finest old mansions in Kent) with my train about me. In the long room I was met by Jane Osborne, who, after examining me very critically from head to foot, was graciously pleased to add her testimony to that of the rest, and pronounce that I should do. I was nevertheless obliged to call her to order in a little aside for a certain trembling of the voice and moisture in the eyes--a weakness not to be looked over in Jane Osborne.

'God bless you, Mary! By five o'clock, remember.'

I just touched her lips, since she would have it so, notwithstanding my pointing it out to her that it was not a time for sentiment; and then with her hand in mine and attended by my train, I went into the court-yard, where my carriage awaited me.

'It couldn't have been grander if it had been created out of a pumpkin!' I whispered to Jane.

She looked uneasily at me. 'Do not try to jest, Mary,' she replied anxiously.

'Why not? if I feel equal to it, you foolish person!'

'_Are_ you equal to it, Mary?'

'_Quite._ If I had doubted it before, I knew when I saw myself in the glass this morning. You ought to be able to see the difference.'

'Yes,' she murmured, 'there is a difference.--You will find the flowers in the carriage, Mary.'

I stepped in, and was swiftly borne away, amidst--I had almost written a flourish of trumpets, so very loud and shrill were some of the voices shouting all sorts of good wishes after me.

I flattered myself that the effect was very telling indeed, when my equipage, with its spirited horses and coachman and footman wearing large breastplates of flowers, drew up before the porch of the pretty little ivy-covered vale church. I was received by the beadle and pew-opener with due respect, and found that I was in very good time. The gentlemen and some of the guests were already in the vestry, said the pew-opener; and in the porch were waiting two pretty young bride's-maids, who eyed me rather curiously. They had just time to remind me that my place was with the guests inside the church, and I to reply that I preferred waiting there, when a carriage of much more modest pretensions than mine drew up, and the two I waited for stepped out.

'Mary, Mary!' ejaculated Lilian, springing towards me with outstretched arms, forgetful, as I even then had the nerve to remind her, of our finery. What would become of me if I gave way now? 'Mary, Mary!'

And no sooner had I released myself from Lilian than there was my dear old Mrs Tipper giving me a good honest hug, utterly regardless of appearances. And as to finery! she had long ceased to allow that to interfere with her love, and was not to be daunted by any such consideration now.

The little bride's-maids, who were very carefully guarding their laces and muslins, reserving themselves for the right moment, looked with much disfavour at an ebullition of feeling at the wrong point in the ceremony; and now reminded us that it was half-past eleven, and that the clergyman and the other guests had been waiting some time. At which, with a meaning look at me, Mrs Tipper put Lilian's hand into mine, and we two passed up the aisle together, whilst the dear little woman walked after us with the bride's-maids, notwithstanding their whispered protestations that it was 'wrong--altogether wrong--and the effect was _quite_ spoiled!'

As Philip turned to meet us, I put his bride's hand into his with a smile which appeared to satisfy even him. Moreover, Robert Wentworth's face brightened, and Robert Wentworth's critical observance had been anticipated with some little anxiety.

Lilian's uncle, the father of the bride's-maids, was to 'give her away;' he looked not a little curiously at the person whose appearance seemed to cause so much sensation; but his curiosity did not affect me.

At the words, 'Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?' Major Maitland gave the necessary response; but both bride and bridegroom turned their eyes upon me, as though the gift were mine.

As soon as the ceremony was over, Philip and Lilian turned towards me; and for a few moments we three gave no thought to the _convenances_, as we clasped hands and murmured a few words meant only for each other. Then the rest of the party gathered about the bride and bridegroom, and I became conscious of the presence of others that were known to me: Philip's brother Mr Dallas, and his wife, and Mrs Trafford and her sister-in-law Mrs Chichester. Marian Trafford was gorgeously attired in what no doubt was the latest Paris fashion; although I think that even she was conscious that her splendour did not eclipse mine. They had not evidently expected to see me there, and both, I felt, watched very curiously for any slight giving-way upon my part. But if I could calmly meet Philip's eyes, it may be imagined that I was proof against the scrutiny of either Marian Trafford or her sister-in-law. And Mrs Chichester's softly spoken little aside: 'Did not I think that the bride and bridegroom were an admirably matched couple, even to age--eighteen and thirty was just as it should be; was it not?' was assented to with a cheerfulness which did not seem to gratify her as a looker-on might have expected it to do.

There was only one shadow on the bride's lovely face, and that came when she signed her name; and perhaps it was natural enough that Major Maitland should frown at the remembrance of the wrong done to his sister. But it was the last time Lilian would be so pained, and she was not allowed time to dwell upon it now.

When we stood aside for her and Philip to pass out, she caught my hand and drew me with them, and in that very unorthodox fashion we left the church and entered the carriage--'Mary's carriage,' as Lilian termed it. There not being room enough at the cottage, the breakfast was to take place at Hill Side, and we were driven there--so far as a carriage could convey us--for we had to alight at the foot of the hill and walk the remainder of the distance.

As soon as we reached the plantations, Lilian took my face between her hands and gazed at me with anxious tender eyes. Then, with a deep-drawn sigh of relief and a radiant smile she murmured: 'It was true, Philip; she _is_ happy!'

'Yes; thank God!' he ejaculated.

I made it the occasion for a little jest about my truth having been doubted; and by that time some of the others had come up with us, when the bride naturally absorbed all the attention, and the rest was easy. It was the first wedding-breakfast at which I had been a guest, and therefore I was not _au fait_ in such matters. I can only say that if there were any little divergences from the etiquette proper upon such occasions, they were unobserved by me. I knew that the two I most cared for in the world were made happy, and that all the rest of us were pleasant with each other, as befitted wedding-guests. I was afterwards told that the bride's-maids thought that they had not been sufficiently considered in being only provided with one gentleman, and he so grave a one as Robert Wentworth. And Philip's brother and his wife were said to be very stiff with us all; whilst Major Maitland was more anxious than it was polite to be to catch an early return train, reminding his daughters that _they_ must not be the cause of his losing it, and so forth. But I looked through rose-coloured spectacles, and it seemed all flowers and sunshine to me.

Dear old Mrs Tipper and I sat together; and it did me not a little good to feel the eloquent pressure of her hand, which she now and again slipped into mine as the breakfast went on. I am, to this day, not quite sure how much Mrs Tipper knew of the truth; but I saw that she at anyrate guessed something of it, when, in a tremulous voice, she whispered a few words about my having given happiness to her child.

I tried a little jest about still having enough and to spare.

'Yes, my dear; that is the best of it; you really are happy. Thank God, you are reaping'----

I hurriedly commenced asking questions about Becky, who, as I had so much hoped she would, was about to become the wife of Tom. He was engaged for the garden at Hill Side, and it was arranged that he should live with his wife at the cottage. Mrs Tipper elected to continue her cottage life; and as she had become very much attached to Becky, she was very glad to adopt my suggestion, that the married couple should live with her.

It must not be supposed that I was ignorant of anything which had transpired during my absence. I had regularly corresponded with Lilian, although I held firm to my first resolution, not to return amongst them again until Philip and she were married, and so brought about the event at an earlier date than it might otherwise have taken place. I need not say that Becky proved a firm ally, and faithfully kept my secret. Faithful Becky! how difficult it was for some time to get her to talk about her happiness to me! This first day of my reappearance, I inquired in vain for Becky; she was not to be found. I only caught sight of her once when I was leaving Hill Side, watching me from the back staircase, her eyes and nose bearing eloquent witness to violent emotion; but when I turned to speak to her, she sped away as fast as her feet would carry her.

As soon as might be, the bride slipped away with Mrs Tipper and me, to the increased disapprobation of the bride's-maids, who prided themselves upon being acquainted with all the proprieties for such occasions. But it was not to be expected that we could allow two comparative strangers to act as tire-women to our Lilian; and we carried her off, regardless of the murmurs about its being 'all wrong--quite wrong!' and so forth.

Once alone together, we three behaved--well, I will say as any other three women who love each other and are not above having feelings might be expected to behave under such circumstances. I contrived to satisfy Lilian, as I had satisfied her aunt, that I was no unhappy martyr, as she asked me question after question, eyeing me with wistful loving eyes.

'And you will not desert us again, Mary?'

'No; I will not desert you again, Lilian.'

'It is quite delightful to see her like this--quite a grand personage, with a fine carriage and livery servants and all the rest of it; isn't it, auntie? I may now confess, Mary, that I have been the least bit afraid that your talking about living in a grand old house with a number of attendants to do your bidding, was'----

'Was what, goosy?'

'Too much like a fairy tale; and you know you used to talk like that sometimes, when you--when I have fancied that you were not quite happy.'

'Are you satisfied at last, dearie?'

'Yes, I am--yes, quite. You look really happy.' I mentally offered up a thanksgiving, as she went on: 'But of course I am longing to know how it all came about. Recollect, you have promised to explain everything very exactly in your first letter. Recollect too that I leave dear auntie to your care; and of course we shall expect to find our sister here on our return.'

I promised; and when we presently conducted the bride in her travelling-dress to the drawing-room, she was looking happy enough to satisfy Philip, who, I noticed, glanced anxiously from me to her as we entered.

We all went down the winding path with them to the carriage waiting in the road below; and sent them off with all sorts of merry speeches and good wishes and the orthodox accompaniment of old slippers.

THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.

The past lends to Egypt a charm more entrancing than its cloudless skies and delicious climate. Go where you will, antiquity meets you at every turn. Around you lie the ruins of cities whose very names have been obliterated in the silent march of the ages. Before you flows the sacred river upon whose waves floated centuries ago the little ark of the outcast Hebrew infant, and the golden barge of the gorgeous daughter of the Ptolemies. Time was when this old Nile was the highway down which many successive nations rushed to conquest: for the Ethiopian, the Assyrian, the Persian, the Roman, and the Saracen have all lorded it in turn in this ancient realm of the Pharaohs. Now vexed no longer with the fleets of rival monarchs, the mighty river rocks with slumberous swell the lotus lilies on its tranquil breast; and on its lonely banks, which have rung so often in days gone by to the shrill pæans of triumph, the palms in the sultry noontide throw their long shadows athwart ruined temples and colossal statues, grand in execution and faultless in detail, which reveal in every outline the perfection to which the arts of architecture and sculpture were carried in this their earliest cradle. The soil is strewed with fragments of broken columns and defaced colossi. Buried beneath the drifting sand of the Desert lie the glorious and yet grotesque masterpieces of the Egyptian chisel. Serene, grave, majestic, inundated with a flood of harmonious light, the calm features of the once inscrutable Sphinx look down upon us, as many centuries ago they looked down in their grand repose upon the wondering Father of History. Time has pressed lightly on these Titanic temples and vast tomb palaces, but from their shadowy portals the worshippers have gone for ever. Desolate and state-fallen, they open now only to admit the curious stranger.

In _A Thousand Miles up the Nile_, by Miss Edwards, we have a lively gossiping description of the Egypt of to-day with its wasted temples and ruined palaces. Cairo--where Miss Edwards tells us she arrived in the end of November 1873, with a party of friends in pursuit of dry weather--is a picturesque city. Seen from a distance embowered in gardens of the richest green, it looks like a forest of minarets and domes intermingled with palm-trees and acacia groves. The streets, as is always the case in eastern cities, are narrow and intricate; but their gloom is enlivened by a series of gorgeous bazaars, where the little pigeon-holes of shops are bright with many-hued carpets, and gay with delicately tinted silks, and glittering tissues of gold and silver. Here you can buy precious stones of varied value, and bracelets and collars of intricate and complex designs, such as were the fashion thousands of years ago at the court of the Pharaohs; or invest, if you choose, in a variety of warlike weapons, inlaid with gold and silver, and damascened with exquisite arabesque patterns.

The busy crowd passing and repassing the while, presents to the stranger a series of intensely interesting _tableaux vivants_. There, with ample turban and flowing beard and long robes of striped silk, stalks the stately Turk, followed by a scantily clad Fellahin. Next comes some Light of the Harem, some Fatima or Emineh, mounted on a carefully painted donkey led by an armed slave. On the street this fair enchantress is but a shroud-like mass of drapery, through which the curious gazer can sometimes discern the outline of a delicately oval face and the flash of a black liquid eye. Behind her, in thin clinging robes of dark but vivid blue, with graceful form and carelessly veiled melancholy face, a Niobe in bronze, glides an Abyssinian slave-girl. By her side a swarthy Bedouin sheik reins in an Arab steed, whose prancings and curvetings somewhat disturb the gravity of the tiny donkey upon which that Englishman is mounted; while over all streams the sunshine of an Egyptian noon, flooding with light the unfamiliar draperies, the strange Saracenic architecture, and the varying features and costumes of each commingling race.

While conducting the important operation of bargaining for a dahabeeyah (a Nile-boat), Miss Edwards and her party went to interview the Great Pyramid. She had fancied that the Pyramids looked small and unimpressive when she first caught a glimpse of them from the railway carriage; but once at the base of this gigantic tomb, she realised, with a sense of awe and wonder, how mighty it was. As she lingered, loath to leave the scene, the sun set in crimson glory behind the sands of the Libyan Desert, and the shadow flung by this immense mass of masonry stretched full three-quarters of a mile over the plain below. 'It was,' she says, 'with a thrill of something like awe that I remembered that this self-same shadow had gone on registering not only the height of the most stupendous gnomon ever set up by human hands, but the slow passage, day by day, of more than sixty centuries of the world's history.'

Before starting up the Nile, Miss Edwards witnessed two of the characteristic sights of Cairo--a performance of howling dervishes, and the departure of a caravan of pilgrims for Mecca. She found the convent of the howling dervishes situated in a picturesque nook beyond the walls. The gateway and courtyard beyond were shaded by a great sycamore tree, through whose branches the glowing sunshine broke in vivid flecks and bars of gold. About seventy dervishes were present; and with the aid of eight musicians, and to the chant of 'Allah! Allah!' they danced round in a circle until they had worked themselves up into a state of convulsive frenzy. Gradually their dance became a series of mad leaps, performed with incredible rapidity, their chant swelled into a hoarse scream, and at last one of the devotees fell writhing and shrieking to the ground. This ended the first performance; and the English ladies did not wait for a second.

Having made choice of a dahabeeyah yclept the _Philæ_, Miss Edwards and her party started with a fair breeze for their voyage up the Nile. This once sacred historic river is, as every one knows, all in all to the Egyptian. His harvests depend upon its beneficent inundations, its waves form his highway to the sea, he eats of its fish, he drinks of its waters, and finds them still, as his ancestors found them of old, delicious as the nectar of the gods. Egypt, baked and shrivelled by the glowing sun into one immense brick, annually sinks beneath the waters of the life-giving river, and emerges from the flood, fresh, radiant, shining, like an emerald, flower-crowned like Ceres of old, and holding in her full hands an ample promise of fruit and sheaf. A Nile voyage in favourable weather is about the pleasantest of all pleasant things. The large sails of the dahabeeyah swell out to the breeze like the wide snowy wings of a sea-bird, and fleet as that bird, she cleaves her way past water-palaces and suburban gardens. The minarets and domes of Cairo are left behind; the Pyramids, towering over the groves of palm, stand clearly out against the cloudless sky; and the distant ridges of the Arabian hills glow with softened shades of tawny purple. As evening falls, every charm of the landscape is subdued into a more tender repose; the night-breeze balmy and cool sweeps up the river; darkness follows, and your boat is moored for the night at Bedreshayn.

Morning on the Nile is inexpressibly fresh and beautiful. At the first faint streak of dawn the light mist clears away, and Aurora spreads for the sun a rosy chariot of clouds, into which he steps at once, flushing the stately palm-groves, and the gleaming river, and the picturesque water-wheels, and the swarthy crew, with a flood of golden radiance. There was, however, little time for sentimental feeling, our author's whole attention being claimed by a horrible clamour which arose outside, caused by the arrival of a regiment of donkeys attended by a phalanx of men and boys.

Mounted upon eight of these asinine martyrs, Miss Edwards and her party proceeded to Sakkarah and Memphis, riding through a country which would have been monotonous but for the subtle beauty of its colouring. Tender tints of rose, and warm tones of russet gold, pale opalescent blues and grays and dusky purples, were all blended by Nature's cunning brush, shading into the nearer green of the dusky palm forests, until they formed one inimitable whole. Sakkarah is a vast necropolis, whose more distinguished tombs are pyramids. The soil around is full of fragments of broken pottery, mummy gods, bones, shreds of linen, and lumps of a strange brown substance like dried sponge. Tread lightly, O Northern stranger! around you are the mighty dead; that brown spongy mass was once warm human flesh, instinct with power and passion; that skull perchance once held the scheming brain of a Pharaoh, who reared for himself one of these vast sepulchres, little dreaming of this all too ignoble resurrection. Of Memphis, the ancient city of the Egyptian kings, only a few mounds remain embowered in vast palm-forests, through whose fan-like foliage the brilliant sunshine falls aslant upon a muddy pool, where, face downwards, lies the far-famed Colossus of Rameses the Great, which, like Cleopatra's Needle, belongs to the British nation. This, with a few battered sphinxes, is all that is left of one of the earliest cities of the world.

On their way to Minieh, a Moslem saint of peculiar sanctity, yclept holy St Cotton, swam out to them, and having hallowed by a touch the tiller-ropes and yards of the _Philæ_, dropped into the water again, and swam back to the shore. It happened to be market-day when they arrived at Minieh, and having stores to buy, they proceeded to it, and found almost everything exceedingly cheap. How it would rejoice the heart of a thrifty housewife here at home to be able to buy a hundred eggs for fourteenpence, or a couple of chickens for tenpence, not to speak of fine geese at two shillings a head! Large and very good turkeys may be bought for three-and-sixpence, a lamb for seven shillings, and a sheep for sixteen shillings or a pound, fruit and vegetables being proportionably moderate.

In Egypt, little children have very hard lines of it. It makes one's heart ache to read of the disease and suffering induced by the barbarous ignorance of their parents. Miss Edwards says: 'To brush away the flies that beset the eyes of young children is impious; hence ophthalmia and various kinds of blindness. I have seen infants lying in their mother's arms with six or eight flies in each eye; I have seen the little helpless hands put down reprovingly if they approached the seat of annoyance. I have seen children of four or five years old with the surface of one or both eyes eaten away, and others with a large fleshy lump growing out where the pupil had been destroyed.'

As a consequence of this horrible cruelty three children out of every five die in Egypt; and in certain districts every twentieth person is either wholly or partially blind.

On Christmas-day Miss Edwards entertained some friends, who were in a dahabeeyah behind them, to dinner. The guests consisted of a bride and bridegroom and a painter. The scene around their floating dining-room was lovely; the placid river flowed tranquilly through broad green savannahs, and breezes redolent of perfume fanned the lotus lilies beneath their prow. It required all the conventional sentiment which attaches to a blazing plum-pudding to convince them that it was really Christmas.

At Siout, the capital of Middle Egypt, they inspected the celebrated Stabl d'Antar. It is a splendid tomb temple hewn out of the rock. The roofs of its lofty chambers are painted in fresh and vivid colours, and the walls are covered with bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics.

En route to Denderah, at a part of the river where the banks were flat and bare, they saw on the western shore what seemed to be a large grizzled ape perched upon a dust-heap, and learned with intense surprise that it was Sheik Seleem, a sort of Moslem St Simon Stylites. There he sat in the gathering night, as he had sat for fifty years from darkness to dawn, and from dawn to darkness, amid inconceivable filth and squalor, not even moving to feed himself. The sailors shouted to him as they passed, loudly imploring his blessing; but he made no sign of response. Motionless as a huge frog, he squatted on his dust-throne, inflated with spiritual pride or madness, or both.

About ten miles below Denderah thousands of Fellahin were at enforced work on the embankment of a new canal. These canals are the life of Egypt; by them the supply of the precious water is regulated and its outlay economised. Without canals and the ever-recurring water-wheels, the fresh green beauty of the river-plains would soon disappear, and famine, gaunt and hollow-eyed, stalk upon the scene, with disease and death in its train.

At Denderah, among other interesting remains, they found a splendid temple in an almost perfect condition, with a finely executed bas-relief of Cleopatra. This queen of beauty, whose slaves were the masters of the world, is fair enough in this mask of stone to recall to Miss Edwards something of that loveliness which conquered Cæsar. 'Mannerism apart,' she says, 'the face wants for neither individuality nor beauty. Cover the mouth, and you have an almost faultless profile. The chin and throat are also quite lovely; while the whole face, suggestive of cruelty, subtlety, and voluptuousness, carries with it an indefinable expression, not only of portraiture but of likeness.'

On the third day after leaving Denderah, they saw in the faint light of the early morning the gigantic propylons of Karnak towering vast and gray against the horizon. The warm flush of the dawn bathed with rosy light the range of precipitous hills, which are honeycombed with the tombs of the kings, and kissed into tender beauty the time-worn columns of Luxor, the ancient Woolwich of the Pharaohs. At Karnak, the ruins are stupendous; the eye loses itself in a waste of giant propylons, columns towering to the clouds, colossal figures in black granite, partially buried in the sand; and a little apart, in solitary grandeur, an immense obelisk, seventy-five feet high, covered with hieroglyphics and bas-reliefs, depicting scenes in the life of Rameses the Great. In the temple at Karnak, the great hall of pillars, roofless and vast, presents to the eye of the curious gazer forests of colonnades, aisles of pillars, huge pylons, towering like giants to the sky, half-hiding, half-revealing weird fantastic bas-reliefs of the gods, who glare, superb in ruin, over their desolated shrines. The sunlight streaming through the open portal shines on avenues of sphinxes, battered colossi, vast lengths of splendid bas-reliefs, glowing with a depth and freshness of colour which Time has had no power to fade; labyrinths of headless statues, prostrate obelisks, shattered images, all in such numbers that they produce a bewildering effect upon the mind.

At Esneh, their next halting-place, there was also a very beautiful temple, dedicated to Kneph. Assouan and Elephantiné (the Isle of Flowers) came next. At Assouan, Egypt proper ceases, and Nubia begins. Here the traveller enters upon the region of the Cataracts, a succession of rapids extending almost all the way to Philæ. The Nile at this point is singularly picturesque. First narrowed between banks of dark red cliffs, it suddenly expands almost to the breadth of a lake, and presents a broad expanse bristling with rocks and covered with innumerable islets, round which the water rushes in swirling eddies of foam. The navigation among these islets is difficult and dangerous; the boat half buried in spray, struggles gallantly forward, making a succession of rapid rushes, as if she were about to dive headlong over the fall; but it is too much for her; she recoils, quivers, turns round, and seems to be driving right upon a huge mass of black granite, when the Sheik of the Cataracts comes to her aid. This tutelary genius of the Nile dahabeeyahs has few of the external attributes of a hero. He is a little fat ugly man; but what of that? he knows his work, and can do it. A moment more, and the dahabeeyah and its inmates will be ingulfed in the foaming abyss; but before that moment comes, he springs up, plunges into the torrent, pushes off the boat by sheer force of muscle; and then he and his tawny assistants drag her up the rapid.

It is a lengthy operation; and while it was in progress, Miss Edwards and her party made a pilgrimage to Philæ. Beautiful Philæ, the fabled tomb of Osiris, the Holy Island whose very soil was sacred, still preserves almost uninjured the beautiful temples and gorgeous tomb-palaces which were the master-pieces of the later style of Egyptian art. The vastness, the gigantic proportions of Thebes and Karnak, are not aimed at here; on the contrary, there is an inimitable grace, an airy lightness about cloister and colonnade, which are half Greek. And what Art has so nobly accomplished, Nature has not been slow to assist. The cloudless sky, the graceful palms, the majestic carob trees, enwrap with greenness and beauty all the wealth of colouring, of sculpture, and of architecture which the past has bequeathed to this spot, once so hallowed, now so lonely. Lingering tenderly reminiscent on the pearly strand of this voluptuous Egyptian Iona, one half expects to see the white-robed priests of Isis wind again in long procession out of the shadow into the sunshine, solemn and stern, vainly questioning of the forgotten ages--What meaneth this?

Leaving Philæ, ever lessening in the distance, the travellers glide away into Nubia, and are quickly conscious of a perceptible change, first in the river scenery, which becomes wilder and more grand, and then in the character of the inhabitants, who become more savage, and at the same time more truthful and honest. The climate becomes warmer, and with the accession of heat, turbans disappear, and the only headgear is that furnished by Nature, consisting of profuse thickly matted hair, plentifully anointed with castor-oil, a species of pomade which frizzling in a tropical sun makes a Nubian beau or belle an exceedingly savoury individual. Very little clothing is worn; the young of both sexes are content with a slight covering round the waist, and the matrons with a single long loose garment of blue. The Nubian women are often beautiful, with lustrous gentle eyes, and grand majestic figures like Junos in bronze. If their wardrobes are slender, their jewel caskets seem well supplied, for they almost invariably wear a profusion of gold and silver ornaments.

Nubia, like Egypt, abounds in temples. At Aboo-Simbel there are two excavated out of the sandstone rock. On the façade of the great temple there is a wonderful row of colossal figures, portraits of Rameses the Great and some of his more immediate successors. This Rameses is believed with good reason to have been the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites. Many hieroglyphic records of his reign have been discovered, some of which when deciphered run thus: 'I, the scribe, have obeyed the orders of my master, and served out rations to the Hebrews, who quarry stone for the palaces of King Rameses, Mer Ammon.' This monarch, whose passion it was to build, has left a more ineradicable impress of his personality upon the scenes of his former glory, than any of his predecessors or successors have done. His face, preserved for us by an Aboo-Simbel Michael Angelo, still frowns in lonely majesty across the desert sands, handsome, placid, sternly implacable, precisely the man who would account the tears and anguish of helpless thousands as less than nothing when weighed against a pet project.

Shortly after leaving Aboo-Simbel, Miss Edwards had a pleasure which she had almost despaired of--she saw a crocodile. The creature was asleep upon a sandbank, and was to all appearance so exactly like a log of drift-wood, that our author refused to believe it was a veritable crocodile until, aroused by the approach of the dahabeeyah, it cocked up its tail, wriggled off the bank, and splashed into the water with amazing rapidity.

They were now on their return journey, and the wind was against them, necessitating frequent and vexatious delays.

At a place called Ayserat they paid a visit to a native gentleman, Ratab Agha, and before leaving were conducted to his harem. He had two wives: the principal wife was very beautiful, with auburn hair, soft brown eyes, and lovely complexion; her rival was plain; and both were magnificently dressed in black robes embroidered with silver, full pink Turkish trousers, and silver bracelets and anklets. They wore their hair cut straight across the brow and plaited behind into an infinitude of small tails studded with coins.

A parting visit to the Pyramids followed; and with an inspection of these colossal monuments, which remain an imperishable testimony to the vigour of the world's dawn, they bade adieu to what was once the mighty temple-crowned empire of Rameses the Great.

A QUEER CLUE.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.--CHAPTER I.

As an ex-detective, I am often asked to relate my adventures, and at one time I was ready enough to do so; but I soon found that my tales were looked upon as dull prosy things, and not at all like what detectives ought to have to say for themselves. Everybody seemed to think that detectives ought to find things out by a sort of magical divination; but I was reckoned a pretty good one, and I have known some of our greatest celebrities; and the only way any of us ever found anything out was by inquiring of everybody who was likely to know a little, keeping our eyes on any probable party, holding our tongues, and putting all the scraps together. Now and then we are befriended by a lucky chance; and when this happens, we get a hundred times more praise than when we puzzle out the darkest and toughest case. The last affair I was ever engaged in was of this kind. I was first concerned in it two years before I left the police, after, by-the-bye, I had quite given up the detective branch; and I resumed it three years afterwards, that is three years after I had left the police; and this is how it occurred. I must first say, however, that I don't at all regard this as one of the dull prosy cases I referred to; in fact, it was the most exciting business I was ever engaged in.

I had left the detective work, as I said, and indeed had left London, for when I grew a little tired of the business, I was recommended to the authorities at Combestead, a thriving market-town in one of the home counties; and I had a very comfortable situation there, having little to do, very good pay, and being head of the borough police. Of course there is a great deal of difference between life in the country and life in town, and from a policeman's view it perhaps appears greater than it does to anybody else; and whereas I had often wondered how anybody could be detected in London, I was equally surprised to think how anybody could hope to escape in the country; for, excepting when strangers came down on some carefully planned burglary, we could nearly always tell where to look for our men if anything went wrong; in short, I knew everybody. As a matter of course, everybody knew me.