a single musical phrase or note from the cruel discord. Our curiosity was soon diverted from the poetry and its accompaniment, by a fat Turk, wearing a green turban to show that he was a Syed, or descendant of Mohammed, who, excited by this melody, rose leisurely, balanced himself alternately, and in cadence, on each leg, and after some preliminary attitudinizing set himself seriously to execute a dance of a most grotesque character. When he had finished, we complimented him on the unexpected pleasure he had afforded us; he replied, with a careless air, that it was in that way the Almeh (dancing girls) danced at the public places. Happily in our character of Parisians we placed no faith in such a prospectus, and consequently we took his exhibition for just so much as it was worth.

The day was spent in the midst of such musical and saltatorial recreations. During the whole of our voyage, the Nile had gracefully presented to us both. its banks clothed with verdure of wondrous beauty. The evening sun set rapidly, and its last rays illuminated with their warm tints a charming village, entirely crowned with palm-trees.

We retired to the stem of the jerm, where our sailors had constructed a tent, or rather an arch, of silk, supported by round flexible rods, or canes; there we stretched ourselves on our carpets, and slept soundly.

When we awoke, the landscape had the same aspect as on the previous evening, except that as we ascended the river, the villages became less considerable and less numerous. The day was spent in the same amusements as before; only that the descendant of Mohammed appeared to us less facetious than on his former exhibition: we had grown too familiar with his grimaces.

On the next day, the songs commenced whilst we were asleep; we thought, as we opened our eyes, that a concert was given on board our bark. Not at all: the wind had turned against us, which forced the sailors to work hard to baffle the current. The captain of the vessel was singing a kind of litany with all his might, to each verse of which the Arabs in full concert squalled due response, but at everyt chorus we receded fifty paces.

As the captain judged that at this rate we should get back to Abú Mansúr the following night, or the next morning at the latest, he gave orders to moor the boat near a village to which we had retrograded.. When the bark was made fast, I jumped ashore and hastened to the nearest house; with great difficulty I obtained a little milk in a bowl; we sheltered ourselves behind a mud-wall, to escape the clouds of burning sand which were drifting before the wind, and made ready for breakfast. Two hours after, the wind lulled, and we resumed our voyage.

We advanced slowly; shallows had succeeded the inconvenience of contrary winds, and though we only drew three feet water, we often touched the sand. We were thus four or five hours advancing two or three leagues, and even this progress was not made without great labour. Towards evening we saw three symmetrical mountains slowly rising above a blushing horizon, and indenting their forms on the sky. They were the Pyramids! The Pyramids, which gained greater height every moment, whilst on our left were developed the first peaks of the Libyan chain, which enclose the Nile in a frame of granite.

We remained motionless; we could not take our eyes off these gigantic constructions, with which were associated such glorious ancient and modern recollections. There too, the modern Cambyses had fought his battle, and on the field we might find the bones of our fathers, just as Herodotus discovered the bodies of the Persians and Egyptians. As the sun descended, his reflection rose up the sides of the pyramids, whose base was enveloped in shadow; soon the summit alone sparkled like a wedge of fire; then the last ray seemed to float over the extremity of the pointed summit, like the flame of a. distant beacon. Finally this flame detached itself as if ascending, to kindle the stars,, which immediately. after began to shine forth with great brilliancy.

Our enthusiasm almost amounted to madness; we clapped our hands, and shouted applause to this magnificent spectacle. We called the captain to request that he would not advance during the night, in order that we should not the next day lose anything of the gorgeous landscape that was about to be unfolded before us. By a lucky coincidence he was coming to tell us that the difficulty of the navigation compelled him to come to anchor. We remained a long time on the deck, still looking towards the pyramids, although the darkness did not admit of our distinguishing them; we then retired to our tent, to speak of them, when we could see them no longer.

The next morning I was the first to awake, and was astonished, though it was broad day, to find everybody still asleep. I felt a sickly sensation similar to night-mare; I roused my companions; the same disease had attacked us all. We went out of our tent; the air was heavy and suffocating; the sun rose dusky red, and was half hid behind a curtain of burning sand raised by the winds of the desert. We felt oppressed, as if we were going down into too dense an atmosphere. Comprehending nothing of this phenomenon we looked round; our sailors and captain were sitting motionless on the deck, enveloped in their mantles, whose folds drawn over their mouths gave them the appearance of those supernatural figures designed by Flaxman. Their

eyes alone wandered over the horizon, which they seemed anxiously to interrogate. Our coming on deck did not in the least divert them from their pre-occupation; we spoke to them, but they remained mute; finally, I asked the captain himself the cause of this gloom, he extended his hand towards the horizon, and without uncovering his mouth, said "the

Kramsin."

Scarcely was the word pronounced, when, in fact, we recognised all the signs of this disastrous wind, so greatly dreaded by the Arabs. The palm-trees, moved by capricious breezes, were swayed backward and forward; the dust raised by the wind smote our faces, and every grain burned on the skin like a spark from a furnace. The birds, disturbed, quitted the elevated regions, and swept the earth as if to inquire the cause of the evil that tormented them; clouds of hawks with their long narrow wings circled round us, uttering sharp shrill notes; then suddenly they perched on a group of mimosas, from whence they again shot up to the sky, rapid and perpendicular as arrows, for they felt the trees themselves shuddering, as if inanimate objects had shared the terrors of living beings. None of the signs, we observed, escaped the notice of our Arabs; but in their unpassive and fixed eyes, or their impenetrable physiognomy, it was impossible to discover whether the symptoms were propitious or menacing.