ancient town, and present another example of the form which Egyptian domestic ruins everywhere take. The crude brick has crumbled away into dry brown dust, and though stone and burnt brick may in some places be concealed, digging among such heaps seldom reveals anything to repay the trouble of the task. The natives gather the mould and sift or wash it for the nitre with which it is impregnated, and great flat basins for evaporation are near the mounds. They are part of a powder factory which the Khedive has imposed on this part of the country; and many naked Arabs on donkeys cantered past with their panniers, or overtook us from the ruins laden with the nitrous dust. One of them stopped to offer some anteeka which he had found, and whispered a sentence in which we only distinguished "scarabee" and "backsheesh." The donkeys were now and then varied by a camel, who looked more at home with his soft-cushioned feet, his noiseless solemn tread, and the sneer which nature has imprinted on his dry, dun-coloured face. He snarls like a dog when his master touches him, and shows his formidable teeth if the stranger comes too near. He is ugly, cross, untameable, discontented, but to the northern traveller at least, always interesting.

Far away, beyond the green fields, where the stony heights come down in great buttresses to the strip of sandy desert at their feet, we saw, while we were on the roof, two or three young camels at home.

They trotted or even galloped through the burning sunshine, chased each other for miles along the glowing waste, throwing up behind them clouds of blinding dust, till they looked like ghosts gliding through a shadowless land. There is something strangely fascinating about them-so unlike other animals, yet so evidently suited to the country to which they belong. Just as wild, but far less interesting, were the dogs. In Upper Egypt at least, they are often as fierce as they are hideous. In Cairo they are a down-trodden race; but in the country they show more independence. South of Thebes, indeed, they are to a certain extent domesticated, and even as low as Dendera they help to guard, if not to guide, the flocks. Between them and the children there is a kind of alliance. On the village dirt-heap both sleep side by side in the shade of the same wall. The same flies creep round the eyes of each, but of the two the dog is the cleaner and the less disgusting.

At length, after half-an-hour's ride we reached the bank. The baggage had gone before us, and we expected as soon as we got to Keneh to find our tents pitched and everything comfortable. Nor were we disappointed. It took a long time to get our donkeys into the ferry-boat, whose high sides would puzzle even a hunter. William Rufus, when once convinced that it was inevitable leaped in with characteristic lightness. The others were lifted by the fore-legs and their feet put over the bulwark. Next

their hinder parts were similarly hoisted by means of the tail which must have been nearly pulled out in the process. There was a moment of suspense, as the unhappy donkey hung wavering across the gunwale, but eventually all tumbled headlong in the right direction, and only too soon we were landed at the Sahil, or port of Keneh.

We found our tents at a place where the people come to draw water from the wide canal which here looks like the Nile itself. Overhead was one of the magnificent lebbek trees which Turks have made so rare in Egypt, and altogther the situation was well chosen and pleasant, if a little too low and near the water. When we asked why this spot had been chosen we were told that it formed the modest patrimony of our cook, who was a landed proprietor at Keneh, though only a cook at Cairo: and he had "personally conducted" our boys and baggage to the spot.

We were not all very fond of the cook, though he cooked well, but there was a little modest pride about him at Keneh which was by no means displeasing. When the inevitable governor came to dine with us we made him acquainted with the fact. He summoned the happy man into his presence, and addressed to him a complimentary speech, upon which our landlord struck an attitude and recited a verse just as they do in the Arabian Nights.

From this point on our journey governors and

other potentates were our lot and portion. They all told the same tale about the famine. At Keneh relief had been given to as many as 6,000 or more at a time, for some weeks, but in this district things had much improved: at least so said our informant, and we hoped it was true. We certainly did not see the same aspect of misery on the people's faces, and it was only to be expected that the further we got south the less we should see of famine. In this idea, as it turned out, we were wholly wrong. The famine was quite as bad a month later, and fifty miles further south, at Erment. It is impossible not to put two and two together, to argue post and propter, when we remember that the largest sugar factory above Farshoot is at Erment.

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Kench-Coptos-Copts-"Backsheesh Keteer"-The Ruins of Gypt -The Name of Egypt-A Lecture-Goos-Early to Bed-A Rembrandtesque Effect.

Few

THERE was not much to delay us at Keneh. anteekas, and no sights are there, and the tent was struck at an early hour next morning. We were sorry to find that our road was to be all through the lowlands. It was, however, as we pushed on, so picturesque on both sides, and increased so fast in antiquarian and historical interest, that our day was very pleasantly spent, especially as neither at Gypt nor at Goos did we see more than the average amount poverty to which the shortest stay in Egypt familiarises a traveller. There was a pretty garden on the left hand of our path for a long way, with orange-trees, and even a few rose-bushes. This passed,

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