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CHAPTER IX.

Leaving Cairo for Upper Egypt-Saccara-Arab ChristeningMinieh-Siout-Account of the Discovery of Ezra's Hebrew Manuscript, by Mr. S.-Cotton Manufactory at Siout-Effect of the Climate on Machinery-Excavations near Siout-CemeterySale of a Young Slave-El Arabat-Ruins-Gournah.

ON Sunday, the 24th, we left Cairo with three camels' loads of provisions, on a journey into Upper Egypt. The day was fine, and the Nile glittering in the sun. Towards evening we walked

along the sands. Fellahs were at labour in the rich fields adjacent, the river lay an unruffled mirror of the cloudless sky above it, when, on a slight breath of wind rising, we suddenly heard the people of the boat shouting and giving orders. They had just time to furl the great sail, when the wind came on, shaking the palms and rolling clouds of dust along.

On Monday we got to Saccara at 10 A.M., and went up to the village, where we met Georgio, a Greek, employed in excavating. He accompanied us to Mr. Caviglia's house, near the Colossus. In the evening we were hailed by a shouting from the village. A villager had just been blessed with a son, and it being considered a good omen to have a name from a boat ascending the Nile, we were to give one. We gave Hassan, which was acknowledged with shouts, and, shortly after, a sort of singing and beating time with the hands, from a great number of persons assembled on the occasion.

The Nile-that river which once seemed almost fabulous, produced no great impression upon us, by its beauty or adjacent scenery. The Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, and the Dnieper, seen in succession, had created too extravagant expectations of the stream, which was to surpass them all. But this feeling of partial disappointment, vanishes before the unqualified gratification experienced, on reflecting that the

river before

In

you has been the wonder of the mighty ones of yore, of the Pharaohs and Cæsars. such a moment you seem to overstep the limits of destiny and to be communing with past ages-not, as on the Tiber, with ages that have acquired renown from authentic history, and where the certainty of facts fetters the imagination, and reduces things to the level of common life, but with dynasties that preceded history, or despised written records, and transmitted their glories to posterity by visible and imperishable memorials. The reflections, therefore, to which this country gives rise, differ much from those excited by visiting Italy--they are mixed with a kind of awe -they relate to objects almost unknown, and pass naturally into the infinite. The delight with which the traveller looks upon the Nile is truly great. Much of the country is waste-endless plains of sand stretch round it, and it owes its social existence to the overflows of the Nile, which created Egypt, and still shields it from the encroachments of a relentless enemy.

Our excursion to Upper Egypt proved to be a most prosperous and interesting journey. By the great success of a new instrument, we made sketches of all the principal remains. Daily we rejoiced that the political clouds at Constantinople did not prevent our pursuing our journey. Europeans judge harshly of the Turks, and hence, under exciting circumstances, believe that the laws

of hospitality must be violated by them, as they would be in more civilized countries. The best praise of the Turks may be found in the following facts, namely, that since we had set foot on their territory, all the perils incidental to European travelling had given way to the most unhoped-for kindness and cordiality—unhopedfor, because we arrived from a christian country, and on the very day of our landing in the Turkish capital, there came a fatal echo from Navarino, spreading terror through all the west, and setting every one on calculations, as to the chances of escape which his friend, might have, before the rage of an infuriated mob. All this while, we were living quietly at Constantinople, or, from a want of confidence in the allies, were alarmed only lest they, by new injuries, might exasperate the people to madness. The spirit of the treaty of alliance is fanaticism-its provisions violate the law of nations-and, but for the dignified moderation of those against whom it is framed, it might have led to deplorable events. Of this measure, posterity can have but one opinion. The false lustre of the Greek name must die away in its own ashes the film of religious blindness will, in the end, be removed,- and the philosophical historian will only have before him the long decided question of right, as pronounced against the interference with Naples, and the occupation of Spain.

Egypt is full of wonders and charms for the

traveller. There he finds a state of society totally different in government, religion and popular manners, from his own. He is no longer occupied with those slighter shades, which mark the Englishman from the Italian, the Frenchman, or the German-distinctions which are often pretended to have been remarked when not observed, and still oftener observed, when not worth remarking. Here the difference is that between night and day; and its effects are the same. The gloom of barbarism and tyranny leaves man, in this country, to grope his way through life, without sufficient light for laying hold of the bounties by which he is surrounded. One hand, more dexterous than the rest, grasps all, gathers the fruits of the earth, and leaves a pittance, only that the soil may again have tillers. What misery is not endured by the oppressed! what tyranny is not exercised to maintain the oppression! When we see Egypt and England, and remark in one, a wretchedness commensurate with the ignorance and despotism under which it groans, and in the other, a happiness corresponding with its knowledge and freedom, how can it be doubted that these are respectively the causes and effects? or, as a darker tyranny and grosser ignorance would in Egypt produce a still deeper misery, how can we doubt that social happiness would be advanced in Britain, by a firmer establishment of liberty, a wider dissemination of knowledge; by the removal of