bols, I know not whether any writers have satisfied the world as to their import. After these corridors we passed through three several halls, each supported by massive pillars; the surfaces of each of these were completely covered in the way in which I have mentioned that the corridors were. To speak of them separately, after passing through the first hill, we went through a long corridor, in all respects similar to the corridors which I spoke of before as having first entered, and arrived at a hall called the "Hall of Beauty," from that through another corridor to the hall of pillars, and then by a similar passage to what seemed as a crowning piece to this wonderful subterranean palace, a hall much more spacious and resplendent than any of the other two. These corridors and halls went, by a gradual descent of steps of stairs, or inclined planes, a very low depth, to the interior of the solid mountain. Out of the mountain were cut the pillars, and out of it were excavated the elaborate halls, as well as the details of all that was required to form these tombs. How they managed to draw out the stones as they went, not to speak of the immensity of labour required for all the execution, baffles my imagination to conceive. I thought I was in a fairy-land. Glowing pictures, fantastic but ingenious, perfect as though yesterday's workmen had turned away from chiselling them, the handiwork of three thousand years ago, the cunning workmanship of millions, the designing of some wonderful unknown. We gazed at the matchless hue of the colours. We were wearied and astonished while dwelling on their minute varieties. We were positively dazzled and bewildered at the wonderful spectacle. The person to whose memory the last vault had been intended, whose sarcophagus had been taken away by Belzoni, for whose fame the stupendous excavation of probably fifty years' work had been prepared, is said to be Missraim; but of this we of course are much in the dark. We went then to visit another tomb of the kings, which was not by any means so fine, as to hieroglyphics or elaborate ingenuity of work, as that which we first visited; but, in the last apartment of it, the range of columns render it superior in style of character as a mausoleum. In the third, the most remarkable particular which we noticed was a very long sarcophagus of solid stone, which was 45 feet in length, and high and broad in proportion. We did not care to explore any more of these mighty excavations; neither did we visit the tombs at Gornou, where we found numbers of natives with pieces of mummy-cases, offering them for sale. After seeing the tombs we decided upon leaving the place of anchorage the next day for Ghenay. We sailed early in the morning, with the current in our favour. We arrived at Ghenay at 11 A.M. On our way, we perceived that the banks of the Nile were well cultivated with cotton, wheat, tobacco, and Indian-corn. (To be continued.) THE ZILVEREN BRUILOFT. (A Reminiscence of Haarlem). BY MRS. C. A. WHITE. "If madam would do him the honour to step into his house, he would shew her a book in which the whole history of the thing was given, with the dates (which, however, he was quite certain of), and the name of the intrepid lady." The history in question had reference to certain little oval d'oyleys, with an edging of quilled lace round them, which we had observed in our exploration of Haarlem, hanging where the knocker would be on an English door, at two nay three, of ¡the houses. Two of them were lined with pink, but the third was partly eclipsed by the introduction of a slip of white paper at the upper end-they were signs, the "Commissionaire" informed us, that two sons and a daughter had just been added to the population of the town. It is a custom, my dear ladies, only proper to this flowery region; in no other part of the Dutch Netherlands, or elsewhere, is it to be seen; and of course there exists a local cause for its appearance. The story is as follows:-When the Spaniards, in the year of our Lord 1572, besieged Haarlem, a lady inhabitant, named Kenau, Simons, Haasselaar, armed and put herself at the head of three hundred wives and daughters of the citizens, and assisted the garrison in its defence. The bravery of the defenders, stimulated by the conduct of their women allies, was proof against the arms of the besiegers; but famine effected what force could not, and when everything that could be converted into food had been exhausted, the town surrendered, and the vanquishers marched in. In that hour of victory, however, the Spanish General, with the natural chivalry of his nation, and an innate sympathy with heroic 66 of a more original character than one ordinarily finds in this class of persons. He was a small delicate-looking man, with a mild attenuated physiognomy, a large forehead, and fine hair that had been wavy, and was not yet gray; but I perceived with regret, what had not before struck me while hurrying him about, and asking him hosts of questions upon every possible local subject, that he was suffering from excess of physical debility, and that what had seemed to me an unpleasant expression about the mouth, was caused by the drawing down of the muscles from habitual but suppressed pain. After resting himself for a few seconds, the "Commissionaire" withdrew to look for the book he had promised me, and the two young women returned to their employments, while Madame, whose eyes had followed with anxious solicitude the movements of her husband, turned to mine, and reading my thoughts, exhausted her little stock of French to assure me, "It was not fatigue; it was the sad complaint he suffered from-sitting agreed with him still less than walking, and he felt it more when his pupils were with him than when he had visitors to attend to." Mynheer was then a schoolmaster?" "No, not quite that, the law prevented him from teaching openly, but he had some scholars "en secret;" perhaps Madame would amuse herself by looking at some of his books," and pointing to a well-filled case near the window in the next room, she rose, and with a little graceful action of apology, left me, conscious, perhaps, that the search for the memoir was but a feint on her husband's part to hide the paroxysms of pain from which he suffered. If the appearance of the fair vrouw had surprised me, the aspect of this little chamber did still more; for it resembled nothing that I had before seen but the chapel of "La Sainte Vierge" during her fête week at Amiens, only that instead of ivy leaves and white roses, the green festoons suspended from the ceiling and wreathing the walls were composed of pine boughs and silver flowers, and a crown of the same dark foliage and shining blossoms hung in the middle of the room, while, wherever a bouquet could be placed, the most lovely flowers appeared. What could it mean? I was as much at fault as in examining the contents of the book-case, which I found crowded with German, Spanish, Italian, English, French, and Dutch authors. In the midst of action, marked his sense of the women's hero- | profession, now and then struck you as being ism by commanding, at the sacking of the city, that wherever one lay in child-bed, a white cloth should be bound upon the hammer-head on the door, and that house should be respected. Bells have superseded hammer-heads at Haarlem, but in remembrance of the fair Haasselaar's the bravery and the white cloth which anciently covered hammer-head, at every birth that takes place in the town (without reference to rank or station) these curious little souvenirs are always exhibited. The "Commissionaire's" house lay a little distance from the Grande Marchè with its ancient Exchange, (now metamorphosed into the butchers' market-house), the solemn-looking cathedral, with its silver chimes, and the Stadhuis, and statue of Lawrence Coster. It was a corner house in what is called Zilstraat, and had a little boutique on one side of the door, with a pretty but modest display of ribbons and millinery. As I stepped into the shop, and laid the beautiful group of gladiolus, with which the polite florist, M. Van Eden, had presented me, on the counter, the faces of two pretty young women appeared at an open door in the interior, and at a word from the bon père, with becks and smiles that spoke a world-wide language, invited me to enter. As I did so, a tall finelyformed woman, scarcely middle-aged, with a face that a Dutch painter might have given to the Madonna without doing injustice to his subject, rose up from a table, littered with fragments spread out like a sacrifice at the shrine of Fashion, which was represented by one of those ugly poupées which the prettiest little cap imaginable could not make pleasant-looking, and motioned me to a seat, with a gentle courtesy that had something in it much more refined than the mere placid self-possession which all Dutch women, whatever their rank, appear to enjoy. Imagine a broad, calm forehead, and oval face, with features expressive of the utmost benignity (gentleness is too passive a quality to express the active kindliness there was in her looks), and deep-set eyes, that, not to slander their sweet prototypes, were like blue violets with the dew on them-the most remarkable and beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen in woman, and not the less beautiful for an occasionally abstracted look, and an expression of command, tempered perchance by sorrow, into sweetness. Neither of her daughters were like her, though the one inherited her fine person, and the other her smiling face, without the shade of sadness that gave it its most touching charm; I could scarcely keep from looking at her, and thinking how beautiful she must have been at their age, and wondering what there was about the woman that, in spite of her simple dress and common-place employment, made her seem superior to them, and set you questioning how she could be the wife of the " Commissionaire," whose good breeding I attributed to the companionship his calling threw him into, and whose appearance was little calculated to make a casual observer regard him twice, except that his intelligence, another necessity of his my floral and literary puzzle, the "Commissionaire" and his wife made their appearance; and Mynheer, quite pleased with my astonishment, placed before me a newspaper a week old, strongly scented with tobacco smoke, where, under the head of "Zilveren Bruiloft," his name, and that of his wife, Cornelija, born Haltzaftfel, appeared with several others. It was an old custom, he went on to tell me, a fête which is always kept in Holland when persons have been married twenty-five years. When a couple have lived happily together twelve years, they have what is called "Copper 66 Bruiloft," when the apartment is decked in the, with my admiration of the "delicate town of same way, only copper foil is used for the orna- Haarlem," as dear old Evelyn calls it, and the ments instead of silver; but those who live to interest I had exhibited for its antiquities, and enjoy fifty years of wedded life are privileged his really pleasant discourse thereon, presently to deck their pine wreaths with gold, and this looked into my face, as if to ascertain if he might is called the "Golden Bruiloft." "Two days depend on his own impulse, and hurried perhaps by ago," Madame continued, the "Commission- that longing for sympathy which sounds as grateful aire," losing all appearance of pain in the in foreign accents as in our mother tongue-he pleasure of the remembrance, "two days ago soon solved all that was problematical in their this apartment could not contain all the friends position. In his young days he had had the who came to congratulate us. It is cus- honour, he said, to bear a commission in the tomary to put an advertisement in the paper, Dutch navy, but previously, while finishing his when all the persons who desire to do so, call education at Leyden, he had become acquainted upon the happy couple and tender their felicita- with his wife. "We were both very young," tions. It is a simple but most interesting rite-a he went on, seeing that he had fastened my atsort of renewal of the bye-gone ceremony, a fresh tention, "but our love seemed full grown from starting-place for old affections. Ah, Ma- the first, and neither time nor my long absence dame, I am so sorry that my wife-my vrouw- had any effect in weakening it. Not that either cannot tell you; she understand French, but of us were without our trials-we had both the she do not like to speak it, she speak still worse misfortune to belong to moneyless but good English, and ny daughters, as you may have families, and our friends on both sides (it is but discovered, know little of either, though they justice to say) did their utmost to prevent its speak very good Dutch. I have done my best coming to an issue, well knowing that for me it to persuade them into learning languages, but could only result in the ruin of my worldly they think with your great poet what you call prospects; while my vrouw's temptations were Milton, that one tongue is plenty for a woman quite of another kind, and resulted from a repe-regardez, madame," he continued, running tition of more wealthy and flattering overturesoff to the other room and returning with his could I be less generous than she. Ah! no: arm full of books-for, like other scholars, the and so it was the old story, madame, we resolved "Commissionaire" possessed a spice of pe- not to live without each other, but as we have dantry-"it is not for the want of the rudi-a law in the Dutch service that no lieutenant ments that they are ignorant;" and with an shall marry unless the lady possess £1,000, or air of much approbation, he spread out on the he himself a private fortune equivalent to it, to table a dozen elementary volumes in the save myself from being expelled, I gave up my languages of the authors I had observed fill- commission-and we were married. We preing the book-case. We have all our weak-ferred each other to fortune and the whole nesses-the vanity of langual knowledge was Mynheer Hygh's. "Twice every day," he went on, "I give instruction to a few young men in these languages, so I leave you to judge, Madame, if it is for want of opportunity that they are unable to converse with you. To be sure," he continued, sinking his voice, and with a subdued expression on his worn face, "facility in acquiring them is the gift of Heaven, and besides, poor things, they have so much to do in other ways that when evening comes they want relaxation, not study." "It must have required great application on your part, Mynheer, to have obtained a knowledge of so many languages," I observed. "Not so much as you might suppose, Madame. In my youth I was taught German and French; Dutch is my native tongue, and my profession-for we were not always as you see us now-took me into foreign countries, and I profited by it to learn the languages of each-it was no trouble to me, but rather a delight." "We were not always as you see us now!" It is astonishing how a little mystery piques one's interest: I longed to learn his story, and that of his beautiful wife, but delicacy forbad my inquiring it. Madame Hygh, meanwhile, seeing that her good man had mounted his hobby, had incontinently left us to the discussion of languages; while the poor teacher, pleased to find a listener who appreciated his mental toils, and, moreover, delighted world, and we wedded in her despite; but ah! 66 in the Bois to Laurence Coster. If I had not heard you so speak, madame," he went on, "I had not spoken of myself to you; but, as a struggler in the thorny path-a humble one indeed, but yet as tender skinned as any-I felt that you would understand me; and not feel gened by this little history of myself." "On the contrary," I replied, "you interest me amazingly, but you have not yet told me all. Why, with your education and talents, did you set yourself down in this seemingly torpid place, instead of moving to the capital, where languages are in request, and where, amongst its numerous publishers, you might have found employment as a translator?" "Ah! madame, your usages are so different from ours, that you will be surprised to hear that, even without a competitor, and in the privacy of this quiet town, I run the risk of fines and imprisonment for teaching without a licence. Self-acquired knowledge in this country has no recognised claim to propagate itself, at least at present. In six months' time the prohibition will be taken off, thanks to the more liberal spirit that has recently crept in amongst us, but hitherto wanting the certificates of the schools, and the necessary formula of having past certain examinations, I have only been enabled to give lessons secretly a state of things that necessarily cramps not only one's exertions, but even their remuneration; and some people, knowing how one is situated, square their economy by our condition-a saving of a few guilders being with the majority of more consideration than social justice. Four lads come to my house twice a day to take lessons, and I have besides two private tuitions; but ostensibly my occupation is that of a "Commissionaire," a situation never of my own choosing, but which has grown out of necessity. There is not in the twenty-six thousand inhabitants of Haarlem more than two or three English persons, and only one other who imperfectly understands the language; the consequence is, that my townsmen unanimously fixed upon me to be the interpreter between them and their visitors, and whenever an English traveller arrived, he was either guided hither from his inn, or I was sent for to point out whatever was worth notice, and give such other information as was desired. Unhappily I had compiled a little History of Haarlem, which thus pointed me out to my townsmen as having the most to say about it. Well, madame, this sort of involuntary responsibility to amuse and be the mouthpiece of travellers to the town, very often broke in upon my other engagements, and as up to this time a false delicacy had stood in the way of its being as serviceable to me as it might have been and, besides that, I needed the cover of some ostensible calling-I made np my mind to become in name what I had long been virtually, and to accept for my children's sake the gratuities incidental to the office; but previously, my dear lady, I had tried my fortune as an author, and had failed. Poetry and the legends of my land were exchanged for the recollections of my travels. A few copies sold, just sufficient to pay the publishers and produce me a pittance, at which I blushed as I received it. Nevertheless I was subsequently induced to undertake what seemed so necessary a work in a commercial city, that though the prosecution of it was like a penance for having deserted the flowery fields of poesy and romance I completed it, and expected to realize by its sale the reward of my industry and painful calculations; but another publisher had, in the meanwhile, learned his rival's intention, and while mine was passing through the press forestalled its appearance by a work almost similar. It was an elaborate little volume, with the value of the coins of every country, accurately calculated, and exchanged into the Dutch currency, and but for the circumstance I have mentioned, might have been universally popular in merchants' offices, and at the Bourse. By the time it appeared, however, every opening was supplied, and some hundred copies lie moulding on the bookseller's shelves, at Amsterdam. My history of Haarlem, a speculation of an entirely private nature, has shared as hopeless a fate; for English travellers, for whom it was compiled, now come armed with Murray's Guide Book," which gives them as much information as they usually require, more indeed than the time they commonly spend here allows them to make use of. You will not, therefore, be surprised to hear that I have entirely abjured literature." "She appears to have treated you with even more than her usual harshness," I said. "And in return, madame,” cried the "Commissionaire,” gaily, “I have grown indifferent to her; teaching and my com missions pay me much better; and in another six months, when I shall be enabled to set up school, I shall be as happy as it is possible for a man who knows he has but a limited time to live." I looked at his thin hand, and pain-worn face, and thought that after the story he had told me, these might be accounted for without physical disease; but I recollected what Madame Hygh had said, and he went on to explain to me, that he had been suffering for a long period, from a cureless and terrible form of spinal complaint, which occasioned the marrow to shrink inch by inch, so that his very days were counted; two years he said was the utmost the physicians said he could live-yet there he sat telling me with a placid look the incidents of his life's history. "It is quite true, Madame," he continued, "that I love the delicious wood of Haarlem, and the fresh air, and my children's voices, and my wife's kind face, and these my pleasant com panions (pointing to the book-case), far too well to wish to die; but if it be God's will I am content, even in knowing my appointed time; I am better off than those who are snatched away without warning. I have put my few worldly affairs in order, and if, as you kindly suggest, there may be hope for me out of the power of the physicians to foretell, I have but to live so that I shall not fear to die-to be prepared in any case." "You are happy, indeed," I said checking my emotion, "to look upon so sad a subject so patiently." "Ah, Madame," answered the good man, "where would be the use of my kicking against a destiny so inevitable, and to which however long we put it off, we must all come! My days will have been but few, and, if I had not early called philosophy to my aid, I might have added full of trouble; but I have learned to judge my own circumstances by those of other people, and you do not know, dear madame, what a balance of blessings this sort of reasoning occasionally leaves us. It was sorrowful indeed to be the cause of bringing that good woman (looking with proud affection at his wife, who had just returned, and had seated herself near me) into all the troubles my changed position has imposed upon her; but her own cheerful temper and brave heart has made them light, where another disposition would have rendered them unendurable. As for my children, they have never known any other station; they are good and happy-may God keep them so!-and for myself I perceive, though things have gone hard with me, they might have been much worse. My house is but a poor one, it is true, but it is not a hovel. I do not wear a fine coat, yet it is not in rags: if we have not dainties, still we have sufficient; and though I have no fine acquaintance left, I have my fond wife, and my gay, good-natured daughters, and three or four light-hearted lads, that make me young again, while I look at their sunny faces and hear their happy dreams of the world of which | they know nothing, and hope so much. Ah! voila! I must be excused, if you please, madame; they are come. My daughters will walk with you round the boulevards;" and as an expression of the most intense suffering passed over his face as he attempted to rise, madame stepped forward and assisted him. * When I returned to take my farewell, as I had promised, I found the "Commissionaire" propped up with cushions in an arm chair, smoking at the head of a table covered with books, translations, &c., with a group of merry-looking faces about him, as full of intelligence as fun. He had been making notes for me in my absence of all that he thought would interest me in the memoirs of the town, and so grateful and delighted were these good people with the sympathy one must have been hard indeed to have withheld from them, that it was only by stratagem I could impose the douceur that the "Commissionaire" had earned. Very often since I have brought back the physiognomies of the finelooking Dutchwoman and her sickly husband, as they stood together under the green boughs of their "Zilveren Bruiloft," wishing me God speed on my journey. Nor have I quite forgotten the philosophy of the gentle teacher, so modest in everything but his gift of tongues. And I would advise everyone, when hard tried, to make essay of his happy rule, and judge their circumstances by those of others; in a thousand instances they too would find a balance of blessings in their favour. LEAVES FROM MY MEDITERRANEAN JOURNAL. BY A NAVAL CHAPLAIN. CHAP. XI.-THE PYRAMIDS. On dismounting at the Pyramid Cheops, I found the dragoman awaiting my arrival. He had already dispatched the rest of our party up the larger pyramid, accompanied by the usual Arab guides, or more properly speaking, helpers. To "tell off" a guide for me was merely the work of a moment, as a tall, powerful, highlyequipped Arab, named Abdallah, which was also, if memory serves me right, the name of the father of the Prophet, stood ready to undertake the direction of my climbing operations. The scanty dress of my lithe friend allowed his muscular limbs full play, thus testifying to his physical fitness for assisting tourists in the laborious undertaking of mounting the huge blocks of stone, of which the pyramid is composed. Abdallah, not satisfied with the favourable impression created by his physique, kept impressing upon me by reiterated statement, that he was "a plenty stronk (strong) Arab"-a fact I had abundant experimental evidence of, both in the ascent as far as I went, and in the subsequent descent. As soon as I signified my readiness to begin, Abdallah seized fast hold of me and ascending the first series of blocks commenced to haul me up, another plenty stronk Arab assisting by the application of vis a tergo. In order to give some adequate idea of the labour involved in this operation, and the exertion it imposed upon all three of us, I may mention that the vertical height of the Pyramid in question is 456 feet The first course of stones is embedded in the solid rock foundation to a depth of eight inches. The area of the platform is about 1067 square feet, each side being 32 feet 8 inches. Whether the pyramid ever had a completing apex I cannot |