Cairo again-Sakkara and the Tomb of Tih-An Egyptian Pepys-Mitrahenny— Dervishes-Home again.

THE

HE whole party of travellers were again in Cairo, and with conscientious minuteness the Scribbler led them through the ever-old yet ever-new city, trying to make the worn and neglected monuments awaken the historical associations which we have endeavoured very briefly to recall in the last chapter.

The Pyramids of Sakkara indeed carried them back again to a more remote period. On the walls of the Tomb of Tih they read the journal of that worthy Privy Councillor of the fifth dynasty. The daily life of Pepys himself is hardly more graphically told than that of this Egyptian of nearly 6000 years ago, who, of humble birth, rose to the highest offices in the state, married a wife of royal blood, whom he chivalrously describes as the "palm of amiability to her husband.” We see how his cattle were killed, how his meat was cooked, and his geese fattened; nay, the exact list of his cattle and poultry. How his fields were ploughed, his corn grown, reaped, threshed, and gleaned; how his ships were built; how he fished and hunted, and how he fulfilled his sterner duties as

judge. And lastly, there is his own portrait, with the matter-of-fact remark (perhaps his own, for the tomb would be decorated for him before his death), "a good likeness;" and we may believe it, for it corresponds at least very minutely with the statue of him at Boolak.

The mausoleum of the Apis bulls, with the wondrous sarcophagi fitted exactly into their places, apparently without turning-room for their manipulation, caused our tourists to utter the same ejaculation as did "the fly in amber." There was the chamber closed for 3700 years, in which were still traceable, when opened,

the finger-marks of the man who had inserted the last stone, the imprints of the naked feet which last trod the sand. So too, in the temple of King Ounas, excavated at the sole expense of the ever-enterprising Cook, were found the tools and burglarious implements of the last robbers who had penetrated it.

At Mitrahenny on their way they saw the colossal statue of Ramses II., the gift of Mohamed Ali to England, long neglected, and now being raised by private enterprise from the ditch where it long lay hid,-never, let us hope, to disgrace the "city of sweet speech scorned."

But with the exception of this excursion, the remainder of their stay in Cairo

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the Victorious.

DERVISHES.

was devoted to the city of the Saracens itself-Masr el Kahira, the city of Mars The wonders of Arab art, however, seemed to weigh but little in the estimation of most of the party. The Sketcher, indeed, was never tired of the beauties of the Arab Museum, its never-to-be-forgotten lamps, its brasswork, its traceries, and its panellings; but the others were little moved. Hides remarked that old brass was a glut in the market, and doubted if the whole lot would fetch fifty dollars. The Patrician, with superior refinement, said that they had better work than that in Regent Street; while the Turtle looked disconsolate, seeing no means of evolving therefrom any question likely to be embarrassing to the Government.

A Ciro Lane.

So with a sigh the Scribbler

turned to the more modern aspect of Cairo of to-day, and piloted them through the numerous lanes and back alleys thronged with sayces, cutters of tobacco, barbers, workers in mushrebeeyah woodwork, dealers in scents and articles from Broussa and Birmingham, Damascus and Manchester. The graceful dance of the Mevlewi Dervishes excited some admiration from the female members of the party, and envy from the Patrician, who was subsequently discovered practising the step in his own room; but the Turtle deemed it frivolous, and Hides averred that it was nothing to any one who, like himself, had danced with Mrs. Abraham Tucker of Washington. The hideous spectacle

BAR BAY

Sayce.

of the howling Dervishes seemed vaguely to remind the legislator of recent scenes in the first legislative assembly of the world, for he was heard to mutter the word "Tanner," and absently declined to give the expected baksheesh, on the ground that he was a "member."

1 An ingenious Frenchman having discovered that the native term of "Masr" was derived from Mars, I may perhaps be excused for saying that Masr" is the old Semitic term for all Egypt. The planet Mars (Arab, Kahir the Victorious) happened to cross the meridian of the new city as its foundations were laid, and Gohar adopted the name of the planet, calling it El Kahira.