62 MANNERS AND CHARACTER. versing with the abler part of his eunuchs. At other times he is employed in dictating his history; or in playing at chess, to which, like most other Orientals, he appears to be passionately addicted. In fact, his active restless temper will never suffer him to be unoccupied; and, when not engaged with graver and more important affairs, he descends even to meddling. Nothing is too minute for him. For example, a young Egyptian Turk, educated in the school of Cairo, now professor of the mathematics, and teacher of the young officers at Alexandria, is compelled every week to give him an exact account of the manner in which each of his pupils pursues his studies. During the period in which he was pushing forward the preparations necessary for putting his fleet to sea, a much smaller portion of the day than usual was devoted to his audiences and ordinary business. Indeed, he would frequently give audience in the arsenal, where he spent a considerable part of his time; after which he used to step into his elegant little state barge, and cause himself to be rowed out into the harbour, among his ships, to observe the progress of the naval architects and shipwrights, and urge them forward by his presence; and in these little excursions of business he was sometimes so deeply interested, that he would not return to the palace before twelve o'clock: thus greatly abridging his hours of relaxation. The accidents of the weather never interfere with his resolutions: he will sometimes set out on a journey in the midst of a heavy MANNERS AND CHARACTER. 63 shower of rain or a storm, which has more than once caused him very serious illness. His movements are sudden and unexpected: he appears in Cairo or at Alexandria when least looked for, which maintains a certain degree of vigilance among the agents of government; though something of all this may, perhaps, be set down to caprice or affectation. In the gardens of Shoubra there is a small alcove, where the Pasha, during his brief visits to that palace, will frequently sit, about eleven or twelve o'clock at night, and, dismissing from about him all his courtiers and attendants, remain for an hour or two. From this alcove, two long vistas, between cypress, orange, and citron trees, diverge, and extend the whole length of the grounds; and in the calm bright nights of the East, by moon or star light, when the air is perfumed by the faint odours of the most delicate flowers, a more delicious or romantic station could hardly be found. In the affairs of the heart, Mohammed Ali is not altogether without delicacy: during the whole lifetime of his wife, an energetic and superior woman, he invariably treated her with the most profound respect, and she always retained a great influence over him. Even since her death he has never married another woman; though he has not refrained from keeping a number of female slaves in his harem. She lies buried, by her son Toussoun, in a sumptuous tomb near Cairo; and, when I visited the place, some friendly hand had recently been strewing sweet flowers over their graves. 64 MODES OF TRAVELLING TO CAIRO. CHAPTER IV. - MODES OF TRAVELLING TO CAIRO DEPARTURE FROM ALEXANDRIA APPROACH TO ROSETTA GREAT FICENT VIEW OF THE MIATTA BRANCH OF THE NILE-LAND OF GOSHEN KELIOUBFIRST VIEW OF THE PYRAMIDS SHOUBRA- CAIRO. Thursday, Nov. 22. near Lake Edko. XXX. THERE are three modes of travelling from Alexandria to Cairo: by the Mahmoodiyah and the Nile, in boats; across the desert, on camels; or by the way of Rosetta and the Delta, on asses. The first of these ways is the easiest; the last is the most fatiguing and expensive, and by far the longest; but it is also, without comparison, the most interesting. Several gentlemen, desirous of proceeding to Cairo, agreed to accompany me by this route; and, having DEPARTURE FROM ALEXANDRIA. 65 sent forward our heavy baggage by water, we this day, about one o'clock, left Alexandria, our friends, Captain Cotton, of the Indian army, and Mr. Bartholomew, a missionary, kindly bearing us company for several miles; mounted, like ourselves, on a couple of those swift and sturdy donkeys which constitute the ordinary saddle-animal of both Turks and Christians in Egypt. The character of this route had been represented to me in very false colours. I was told that it would frequently be necessary to dismount, undress, and swim over very broad canals; that we should be impeded in our progress by vast morasses and swamps, in which our animals would sink up to their bellies; that we must often sleep in the open air; and that, in many villages, no kind of food was to be procured for money. As I happened to be labouring at the time under a sharp attack of fever, my selecting this route was characterised as an act of extreme imprudence; as it would undoubtedly have been, had the stories which were related to me been true: but as the narrators of these marvels, who had themselves performed the journey, did not appear to me extremely capable of enduring privations or fatigue, I attributed all their wonderful stories to a desire to enhance their own hardihood, which I afterwards found to be the case. XXXI. We quitted Alexandria by the Rosetta or Canopic Gate; our road, at first, lying between high mounds of sand and ruins; which, as we advanced, became smaller and fewer, and at length wholly dis appeared. We then entered upon the desert, and, for a time, lost sight of every trace of vegetation; although, in the course of the afternoon, our eyes were once or twice refreshed by the prospect of a few small clusters of date palms; near which, upon the sand, we saw two or three poor Bedouin tents, whose owners appeared to be absent with their flocks. In the midst of one of these little groves we observed a Mohammedan cenotaph, or headstone, consisting of a low slender pillar of white marble, surmounted by a neatly sculptured turban, beneath which, in very legible characters, was a long Turkish or Arabic inscription. In the sandy waste, close to this spot, where our friends took their leave of us, I for the first time beheld the phenomenon of the mirage, or “false waters of the desert;" which, to many travellers, has appeared to wear the exact semblance of a lake, with a surface unruffled by the slightest breeze. It certainly presented, at a distance, the appearance of water, so as to deceive the eye, and a light delicate vapour seemed to float over its bosom before the wind; but, when carefully scrutinised, the whole appeared to melt away, and dissolve "into thin air." The illusion, however, must have been much less complete than that which has been sometimes beheld in the East; and, indeed, I afterwards, near Dakke, in Nubia, witnessed a much more perfect phenomenon of this kind. XXXII. Pursuing our way through the desert, in which the drifting sand was in some places blown |