THE HALT AT EVENING.

37

shrub which he may crop by the way. All his sulkiness is shown at starting; and, when he stops for the night, he is content with a small mess of beans, and, once in five or six days, with a draught of brackish water. So, with all his ungainliness, stupidity, and querulous temper, and his destitution, above all domestic animals, of qualities to draw human sympathies, he is invaluable for the desert; and there is nothing to supply his place. We begin now to look about for a suitable place to encamp; and having found one, the line of march is broken, the camels are brought together, made to lie down, and unloaded. In a little more than half an hour, our moveable house is built, our carpet laid down on the sandy floor, our beds placed on each side of our single room, with our table between them, our candles lighted, and we at work reading or writing. Meantime, our cook has pitched his tent, got all his apparatus in order, and prepared our dinner, or supper rather; for now, at eight o'clock, the dragoman has come to announce that it is ready, and he wants to lay the table; so our writing materials must give place for a time.

We have finished our meal, and I have just been outside of the tent, to look about and enjoy a night-scene on the desert. The stars are shining out brilliantly, as in a winter's sky at home, and there is not a cloud to be seen. Our Arabs are seated round their fire, which lights up their tur

38

NIGHT-SCENE IN THE DESERT.

bans and dark faces, talking and singing merrily, although they have walked all day, a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, for the most part in a heavy sand. The camels are in a circle, resting contentedly, and crunching their hard food-a pleasant sound to us after the severe work we have put them to. On the other side of a small sandy ravine, we can see the tents of our companions and the glimmering lights within; and their little camp -tents, camels, and men-all painted, as it were, on the dingy background of the desert, by the ruddy flames shooting up once in a while. The pilgrims are between us, sleeping soundly, under our protection, beside the dying embers of their fire. The hum and bustle which have thus invaded a small spot in the silent waste, will soon be hushed, and we shall all be asleep except our watch for two of the men are always on guard during the night; and often, when I wake, I hear them singing, in a low tone, their national songs. Their singing is a kind of chanting, with singular guttural inflections on certain notes. It has not an unpleasing effect when heard in the stillness of the night; though not very musical, according to our ideas of music. But it is time to go to rest, and prepare for our early rising and hard day's journey to-morrow. So we close the curtain-door of our tent; put out our lights; think of our dear families in Rome, and far away at home; com

ASPECT OF THE DESERT.

39

mend them, with ourselves, to God's protection; and give ourselves up to the repose for which fatigue has well prepared us.

Aspect of the Desert.

How difficult it is, by words, to depict natural scenery, so as to place it before the mind's eye of the reader, any one must feel who has compared the actual look of some place, new to him, with the idea which he had previously formed from a description. While, therefore, I attempt a sketch, or rather a series of pictures, of the desert, as it gradually revealed itself to me, it is with a faint hope of conveying to you some general impressions only, which may be truthful, or of removing others that are erroneous. I found that I had formed many inaccurate notions of what I should see, and was often struck with appearances quite unexpected, and even unimagined, notwithstanding the accounts of travellers which I had read; and, very often too, descriptions that had conveyed no distinct idea to my mind, while reading them, became glowing and lifelike when aided by the actual sight. In what I am about to say, then, I shall strive to profit by my own experience; and, when I can do so, will call in comparisons with what

40

SCATTERED VEGETATION.

you have seen, to aid me in giving you some conception of the general aspect of the desert.

It is, then, neither a dead level, nor a wide waste of shifting sand, or naked rock. While it appears in the distance, for the most part, like a flat surface, you find it, as you come nearer, somewhat undulating and broken, with occasionally smooth plains of coarse gravel, or hard sand, tufted with knots of grass and dwarf shrubs. Sometimes you descend shallow ravines, or cross low and lengthened hills of sand. It is much as Hempstead Plains, on Long Island, would look, with the grassy turf removed; and I was often reminded of the region of country between Jamaica and Rockaway. Between El Khanka and Salahiëh, nothing would forbid the supposition, that the greater part of the land, in ancient times, had been fertile and under cultivation. Indeed, bordering upon what was the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, before that outlet was choked up, a supply of water would be had in abundance; and this alone is wanting to restore vegetation.

There are evidences, too, that the whole of this district was once thickly peopled. At some miles north-west of El Khanka, and again near Belbáys, where there is now a large modern town, we passed considerable mounds, like those of Heliopolis. These are the ruins, doubtless, of ancient cities; and they bear, to this day, the name Tel el Ye

MOUNDS OF THE JEWS.

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hood, or the "Mounds of the Jews." One of them is supposed to mark the spot where stood that temple built in the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, of which an account is given by Josephus, in the third chapter of the thirteenth book of his Antiquities of the Jews: "How Onias built a temple in Egypt like to that at Jerusalem." This high priest, seeking a refuge from the persecutions of the Macedonians, who then held Jerusalem, wrote to Ptolemy and Cleopatra for permission to build this temple; and says, in his letter: "Now I found a very fit place; this place is full of materials of several sorts, and replenished with sacred animals." He alludes, moreover, to that remarkable passage in Isaiah xix. 18: "In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts; one shall be called the City of Destruction." The marginal reading of the Bible in this place is, "The City of the Sun." Upon this very striking passage, Whiston, in a note, observes: “A strange name, City of Destruction, upon so joyful an occasion; and a name never heard of in the land of Egypt, or, perhaps, in any other nation. The old reading was, evidently, the City of the Sun, or Heliopolis; and Onkelos, in effect, and Symmachus, with the Arabic version, entirely confess that to be the true reading."

The verses in Isaiah following the one above