scribed by the boy as an ill-favoured person, with red hair, and seated tete-a-tete upon a sofa with a black man. As our friend had already described her to us as a person of considerable personal beauty, and appeared to be more than ordinarily concerned in her welfare, a hearty laugh went round, in which the magician and the boy joined, (at least as much as a Mooslim can laugh,) supposing they had made a good hit. He was next tried with persons residing in England, but he always failed. However, as he made an attempt to describe somebody, and seemed evidently prepared by the magician, we dismissed him and procured another—the very one who a few days before had so valiantly chopped off his finger, as I mentioned at page 204. Not being educated to the affair, he certainly was unable to see any thing but his own face, although the incantation was repeated till the operator was nearly hoarse, and the smoke of the frankincense had well nigh smothered the little boy. A third was tried, but with like success; the magician, however, asserted, that from these children having some evil thoughts, or from some untoward circumstances attending the performance on that particular occasion, they were unable to see the persons he wished—in fact, they were not magnetisable.

To try still further the powers of this man, a Greek chief, who was present, brought in a picture-case, containing the portrait of a lady then alive, and offered the man a hundred dollars, which he placed in the hands of Count Albert, if he could then, either himself or by his own boy, describe the dress and features of the person represented in the picture. This he declined at the time, but said he would come on Sunday and do it. He soon slunk down stairs and decamped, and I need hardly say he never came back. So much for our magician, who, we all agreed, was a complete hoax, and a much more clumsy conjuror than an English fair could afford. There was decidedly an endeavour to deceive, and of this I am the more convinced by a circumstance related to me by our vice-consul, Dr. Walne.

Some English travellers wished to see the far-famed magician, and an evening was appointed for his performance. He arrived, and the company not relishing the accomplice he had brought with him, one of the servants of the consulate was sent out to procure a boy, but directed to be on his guard, and not take any whom he might suspect of being in the pay of the conjuror.

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Now, in the vicinity of the consulate a number of streets meet, and on the servant coming to the end of one, a man asked him where he was going; being informed of his errand, he instantly said, "Oh, here is one for you," producing a boy who was in waiting. The servant perceiving the trick refused him and turned another way; but again and again the same attempt was repeated. In fact, fearful of failure, they had beset every avenue with boys instructed by the magician. Hence, I think, it is a fair inference to draw, that where there is a studied endeavour to practise a deception, there is no reality.

Except by the Almighty's permission, satanic influence is the only power by which the representation of persons living or dead could be thus really "brought up" in a distant land, and that power I do not believe now exists. I have heard and read many wonderful accounts of these men, but such was my experience.

Since the first edition of this work appeared, various intelligent English travellers have visited Grand Cairo, and have, I may say unanimously, expressed opinions confirmatory of those which I was the first to promulgate in this country, after the astounding accounts put forward about six years ago, relative to the revival of magic in this land of mystery and enchantment.

Not the least wonderful, and certainly one of the most disgusting performances we witnessed, was that of serpent-eating. An Arab, of most ferocious mien and appearance, presented himself one day at our hotel for this purpose. He had with him a bag full of snakes, principally the coluber haje,* several of which he took out, and hanging some round his neck and on his arms,

*The haje (Coluber Haje, Linn.) Geoffr. Egypt. Rept. pl. vii. and Savigny, suppl. pl. 111, in which the neck is indented somewhat less than the Cobra de Capello used by the Indian jugglers, and which is greenish, bordered with brown. "The jugglers of this country, by pressing its nape with the finger, know how to throw this serpent into a kind of catalepsy, which renders it stiff and immoveable, thus seeming to change it into a rod or stick. The habit which the haje has of raising itself upright when approached, made the ancient Egyptians believe that it guarded the fields which it inhabited. They made it the emblem of the protecting Divinity of the world, and sculptured it on the portals of all their temples on the two sides of a globe. It is incontestably the serpent which the ancients have described under the name of Aspic of Egypt, of Cleopatra, &c.”—Cuvier, Animal Kingdom.

he placed others on the ground, and by treading on their tails, irritated them so as to make them become erect, raise themselves up, swell out their necks laterally in a most remarkable manner, and assume, with their extended jaws, vibrating forked tongue, and hissing note, a most threatening aspect, as they formed a circle round the serpent-charmer. Their fangs had been, however, previously removed. For a four-piaster piece, he offered to eat one for our amusement, and accordingly, taking it up, he held it at full length opposite his face, for some minutes; his eyes glistened with a most inhuman brightness, his nostrils dilated, his lip curled, and the muscles of his face played with unusual and apparently involuntary motions, displaying a set of particularly white teeth, within the setting of his thick and grisly black beard and moustache. Each end of the serpent writhed in his hand; he placed the centre across his mouth, and with a single champ bit it in two, and then placing one end of the twining severed snake within his jaws, nipped off a large mouthful, and putting his finger to the still living morsel, to give it a jerk-bolted it-the stream of blood trickling like gravy from the corners of his mouth, and the head and tail of the snake he still held up, twined in his bloody hands a more demoniac face I do not think I ever beheld, or a scene more sickening; but it is his mode of living, and there are many more pleasing, but perhaps less honest, as I that evening had an opportunity of observing.

An invitation from the managers introduced me to a public ball, held in the house of one of the European representatives. The scene was one calculated to inspire particular interest in a foreigner, as, from the number and diversity of costumes, it had all the appearance of a masquerade, while the ridiculous oddity of the dress of some of the men strengthened the illusion. These being for the most part in the native service, and glad of an opportunity of reviving, even in dress, the recollections of their father-land, had assumed in part their old garbs, but had covered their heads (shaven to meet the "regulation") with the red turboosh, which made them look as if they had crowned their finery with old Kilmarnock night-caps.

A number of ladies were present, principally French, but dressed in the Levantine costume. Some few were natives, Jews, Copts, or Syrian Christians. The general effect of their costume was pleasing, though strange; the wide trowsers, tied tightly

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round the ankles, made their beautiful little feet look still smaller; the loose, flowing robe of pink or white, and the short undergarment, were very becoming. In the east, the bosom is, however, much more exposed than in England, low as we have of late descended in that respect; indeed, it is generally stripped in front as low down as the waist, which is worn immediately under the arm-pits. The upper part of the person is clothed in a velvet spencer, broidered with gold, hanging below the waist, open in front, and the sleeves reaching half-way down. to the elbow. Notwithstanding that there is much of beauty, taste, and elegance in the costume of the upper ranks of ladies, yet, according to our notions of form, they are wretched figures, and evidently made for the ottoman, and not the dance. Their hands, fingers, and nails, were stained with henna, (lawsonia inermis, or Egyptian privet,) and the eye-lids were painted with the kohl, a black powder used by all classes of females to darken the edges of the lids, produced by burning a kind of liban, or aromatic resin, and sometimes shells of almonds;-lead, and formerly antimony was much used for this purpose. This marking of the eyelids is, I confess, only seen in perfection in persons of very dark complexion, and natural depth of colour; in persons of light complexion, it is by no means pretty.

I here saw a style of head-dress peculiarly oriental, and surpassing every thing I could have conceived of its grace and beauty. The whole of the hair, which was of vast length and jetty blackness, was plaited in numberless small plaits, each about the size of a piece of whipcord, and at every inch or two of their length was fastened, or worked into the plait, a small gold coin. These spangled tresses, which hung down on the neck and shoulders far below the waist, when sparkling in the light of the ball-room, had quite the appearance of a delicately-embroidered veil ;-this is called the safa. One or two large plaits of hair were brought round the head, and on the front was hung an ornament formed by a number of small thin coins, set in a kind of mail-work, that fell some way over the forehead, called a choors. Others wore the turboosh; while the more elderly had their heads enveloped in the folds of broad and highly-ornamented turbans; and all wore a profusion of gold and precious stones; and costly shawls, that hung down behind to the very ground, were tied round the lower part of the body.

The room, which was small, was crowded to excess, and hot in proportion. The disagreeably loud and discordant music of Pandean pipes, harpsichords, guitars, and mandolins, was only overcome by the authoritative roar of the master of the ceremonies, who marshalled the dancers through the quadrille.

There cannot be much amusement in these balls, and I fear we must proceed into an adjoining apartment, where a certain stillness, and a dense crowd surrounding a long table, may offer some explanation. Here the collection of anxious faces, and the display of gold and cards, solve the mystery. Faro is, I believe, the true and only incentive to these meetings. Some Jews held the table, and although I understood they paid a large sum for having it in this gentleman's house, yet it seemed a thriving speculation. The rage for gambling, both here and at Alexandria, is almost incredible; you cannot go into a Frank coffeehouse, or any place of public entertainment, without seeing cards and dice at every moment of the day. The Mooslims are proverbial gamblers, and meet ready companions in the Greek and Italian residents, and an occasional gull in some English seacaptain, trading to the Levant.

Presently an Arab servant entered, crying, "punch! punch!" and carrying a tray of half-and-half, composed of raw new rum or brandy, and boiling water; by way of distinction, it was pressed upon the British who were present, and their polite refusal of the scalding liquid not a little astonished the Turks, who all imagine, and with some reason I confess, that spirits, in some shape or another, are necessary to the existence, or at least to the enjoyment, of these western islanders.

I left the assembly at an early hour, to prepare for an excursion I had purposed to the tombs and pyramids of Sackara and Dashoor, while my friends remained to share in the more social pleasures of the capital.

Jan. 28th. Having prepared provisions and other necessaries, I procured three donkeys and two Egyptian guides, and, accompanied by our Maltese servant Paulo, set out early in the morning. About an hour's ride cleared us of the city, and brought us to the ferry at Old Cairo; as soon as our approach was espied, we were assailed by a whole host of boatmen, several of whom made attempts to carry the donkeys on board by main force, and the koorbag alone prevented similar treatment of