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Arab, as by the Greeks or the Armenians. offends their religious prejudices as well as their sense of justice. One of the first objects seen on arrival at Cairo is a statue representing, in bronze of colossal size, Ibrahim Pasha, the Khedive's father, on horseback. To make statues is a crime of great magnitude to the Moslem mind. It is characteristic of the bastard civilisation grafted upon Egypt by its present rulers, that, though the statue is bronze and a fine work of art, the lofty pedestal is of wood, painted in imitation of stone. A similar and equally typical example of the way in which public works are carried out may be seen in the mosque in the citadel. The walls are lined with slabs of alabaster for about twenty feet from the ground, and above that height are painted and grained in imitation. Immediately below this monstrous monument of Turkish taste is the mosque of Sultan Hassan, an edifice contemporary with our own Salisbury cathedral, and worthy of careful study by every lover of simplicity and beauty in architecture; and here, while countless sums have been laid out on a French Alhambra kind of mosque close by, the whole building is going to destruction from neglect; its exquisite fretwork of precious inlays dropping from the walls, the roof of the central kiosque stripped off in great patches, the beautiful Syrian lamps, so much praised in the guide-books, all gone, and the vane of the graceful minaret bowing to its fall. Yet it may be safely predicted that something of Sultan Hassan's building

will remain long after every palace of the Khedive has disappeared.

English bondholders may wonder where their money has gone, but a few days in Cairo would soon settle their minds. Let them look at the palaces, as aforesaid; let them walk past two or three of the vast barracks, each filled with black regiments, every man of which has been bought from a slavedealer in Central Africa and transported at immense cost, in spite of all treaties with the abolitionists. Let them stand aside as two grooms in purple and gold and fine linen clear the way for a magnificent pair of English high-stepping horses, drawing the carriage in which one of the Viceregal family is seated, while a couple of hussars trot at the wheels; let them, in short, see Cairo as it is, and not through the false gloss of half French civilisation which its Turkish conquerors have imposed on it.

Heliopolis-The Delta-The Peasant Cultivator-Towfik Pasha-The Obelisk-The Inscription-Other Obelisks.

THE greenest drive near Cairo and the shadiest is to On, the place to which the Greeks gave the name of Heliopolis. Of the city and temple nothing visible

remains, except a mud wall and the famous obelisk, an obelisk on which English visitors always make the remark that Joseph must have seen it.

To my mind it is more interesting to reflect that it was where it still stands full 1,000 years before Joseph came into Egypt. The obelisk is there still, and many other things remain just as he saw them-the green fields, the degraded labourer, the wide, flat expanse stretching away towards the north, the yellow sandy hills closing in towards the south, and the silver waves of the river here dividing into the great arms which encompass and water the rich districts of the Delta.

It is well worth while to climb the Mokattem Hill above Cairo, for the sake of seeing this view alone. The position of Heliopolis is seen as on a map, and the old site of Memphis, ten miles higher up, is easily made out from the fringe of pyramids which stretches between it and the western desert.

This view and the drive or ride to Heliopolis will give a stranger a very good idea of the immense fertility of all the land upon which the annual inundation comes. If the level is one inch, nay, half an inch above the inundation, the soil is sandy and barren.

On the road the great palace of Abbas Pasha is passed, and close to it an enormous barrack, which a year ago was crowded with soldiers. The tall octagon towers are signal stations, which Abbas built to protect him from any danger of insurrection.

He had a morbid dread that he would be assassinated. Perhaps conscience made a coward of him. for, though by no means a bad ruler, he was addicted to the most hideous vice, and in the event his fears were but too well justified. While he was residing at a palace at Benha, in the Delta, a quarrel or intrigue among his wretched favourites led to the entrance of two of them into his chamber at night, when they put him to a death of such cruelty that the fate of Edward in Berkeley Castle was comparatively merciful.

Past the Abassceyeh the road enters a grove of cactus, while feathery sont-trees arch overhead. Half a mile further and we are on the soil of the Delta, and surrounded by a beautiful greenness to which no painter can do justice.

The land, as its peasant cultivators say, is gold, not mud. For ordinary crops it requires no manure and little labour. The yield, with the most primitive tillage, is enormous. Two crops of corn may be grown in a year, or even three. The moment a canal is made, the ground in its vicinity grows green. It needs no preparation for the seed but a little surface scratching and small watercourses for irrigation. Along the Nile the shadoof goes all day long, except during the inundation, when it is not required. In some places the sakia, with its rows of graceful earthen jars, raises water both day and night. At the wheel two yoke of patient oxen relieve each