bird sacred to Thoth, the secretary bird of ancient Egypt, was here interred to sanctify the place?"

The question had to be left unsettled. The sandy slopes had been gradually assuming more and more a golden hue. Now the shadows which had crept across the desert from the encircling hills deepened into purple, and we had only time to canter over to the low portal of the second castle, the Coptic Dayr of which the Collector had spoken in the morning, when the sunset was upon us.

The Englishman went within the walls, while his companions rode slowly back. The Antiquary was struggling with that feeling of depression and disappointment which seems always to visit us when we have come a long way to see a famous sight or site-it is immaterial how we spell it; but rather because one feels so powerless to record one's impressions, or to know all one ought to know, to do justice, as it were, either by eating or digestion to the mental food provided. About the middle of the entertainment we find we can swallow no more. Yet we labour on, and hope that some future day we may be glad we at least saw all that was on the table.

As for the Scot, no such feelings troubled him. He was anxious to get to the tent because he had promised himself a hot bath before dinner, and because Hassan had promised to find him a barber in Arábat,

French Antiquaries-A long Delay-A Messenger-A long WalkRumours of the Famine.

"THERE must," exclaimed the Collector, with a strong emphasis on the second word, "be wonderful things here if one could only get hold of them." We were sitting at breakfast at the door of our The Irishman was thinking of the Table-not of the breakfast table, indeed, though to it he did ample justice, but of the list of kings at the further temple. Should he have time to copy seventy-six

tent.

ovals in an hour?

The Lawyer was engrossed, besides his breakfast, with his chin, which retained the smoothness acquired last night. But when our Scottish friend stroked

that feature, it generally turned out that he was cogitating some scheme for the good of mankind in general, and any one but himself in particular.

"The fact is," continued the Collector, "when the French were here,-I don't mean the French army, but some recent emissaries of the Khedive, to collect anteekas for Boolak,-they treated the people so shamefully that they are afraid now to be even suspected of having found anything."

"Please don't say a word against the Boolak Museum," exclaimed the Antiquary, to whom during a whole winter in Cairo it had been a source of joy and happy employment.

"Upon my word I'm afraid it's true. Your genuine Frenchman has such queer ideas where anything which he considers science is in question. One Frenchman had no objection when the great Canal was projected to accept the lives of thousands of the fellahs, torn from their homes, to carry out his scheme. If the other governments of the civilised world had not cried out 'shame!' I warrant you the French would never have interfered. It was just the same here. If I had a fortune I would willingly spend it to have this Kom e' Sultan thoroughly explored-but rather than force the people from their fields to work, rather than have one man bastinadoed to give up what he had found, I would never look at another scarab."

We thought the Englishman rather hard on his

U

fellow-collectors, the Boolak authorities, as well as on the French in general-but he probably knew more than he told us, and his sympathies were all with the oppressed people. During the next few days there was ample scope for the exercise of this feeling.

Now the Scot, still stroking his shining chin and anxious to turn the conversation, propounded the following scheme. "While you are here superintending the packing up, the Antiquary and I will walk on to the temple. Somebody may bring you anteekas when we are out of the way, and meanwhile the Antiquary can have a good look at the Table. We cannot miss you, for you must pass the temple on your way with the caravan, and in any case I will look out from the top of the mound while he is within.".

This good-natured proposal was too good to be declined, and a few minutes later the Antiquary was' happily engaged copying ovals, while the Scot, surrounded by a crowd of children, old men, and especially sick people, who thought he must have medicine to give them, stood on the dusty summit of the mound looking out.

An hour he stood. The sun began to grow hot. The Antiquary having completed his task joined him. They prescribed as best they could for the sick. They bought beads from the necks of the little girls. They sent the little boys scrambling down the slope for halfpence. But no caravan appeared, and

at last, when two hours had elapsed they began to get uneasy. The Collector, they thought, must have had a rare find: but if so, why did not he send to tell them of the delay? They scanned the distant fields in vain. No caravan of donkeys was in sight, and every moment added to their anxiety and to the blazing heat.

At length a naked Arab appeared running and shouting from the direction of the river. He threaded his way through the narrow paths, was lost to sight a moment in some canal, emerged again on a green. hillock, dived through the dark belt of encircling palms, and climbed breathlessly up the slope of débris on which the travellers were standing.

As well as they could understand him he had been sent to tell them the donkeys and the "great howaga" were gone about "ethneen sah," two miles or two hours, and not overtaking them had sent him back to look.

"We are hot enough already," exclaimed the Antiquary, dismayed at the prospect of two hours' fast walking across the country: "how can we have missed them? They should have come by this way, surely."

But there was no use in regrets, and the two, taking off their coats, made the best of their way after the Arab, already becoming a speck in the distance. The Antiquary had one consolation at least. whole Table of Abood copied into his note-book

The