By Mrs. JOSEPH COOK.

Two months have passed since the journeyings of the Chautauqua quartette were interrupted by the illness of their beloved commander-in-chief, and now, under new leadership, they are about to resume their travels with the “limited time” for which American tourists are famous. Much must be omitted which was in the original program, and piteous are the groans of these disappointed Chautauquans, as one after another of their anticipated delights is ruled out of the new plan. “We can not go to Germany!” “Can not go to Germany!” exclaim the four as with one voice. And then one by one they utter their separate laments. “Not see the Sistine Madonna!” “Nor the Rhine!” “Nor Rauch’s lovely marble of Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg!” “Nor Heidelberg Castle!” “I feel for you from my heart,” says the leader, “but let me beg of you to reserve some of your emotion, for I have other disappointments in store for you. It is quite likely that you will visit the continent of Europe again, but this may be our only opportunity to go around the world. We do not want to make the circuit of the globe after the fashion of Jules Verne. Be prepared for another shock. We can not stop in Switzerland!” The faces of the quartette grew positively pale at this announcement. There were tears in the eyes of the Æsthetic member, who had been improving the two months’ delay in practising sketching from nature, and confused murmurs of “Interlaken—Chamounix—the ascent of the Rigi—Lucerne and Thorwaldsen’s lion—the Lake of Geneva, and the Castle of Chillon—alas! alas!” came from the party.

“Let me tell you our best plan,” said the leader, who felt herself in an awkward position in thus coming in to take the place of another, and obliged at the outset to insist upon slaying the cherished hopes of the Chautauqua quartette. “I am sure none of you want to visit any of these famous places simply to say that you have been there, or to ‘see all that you can in five minutes,’ like the over-hurried traveler Howells describes in his ‘Venetian Journeys.’ We must reach Italy by the shortest possible route. We can not stop there half as long as we shall desire. Rome is inexhaustible, and we want to see the Pyramids and be ready next month to set sail from Suez for India.” The gloomy shadows which had fallen on the faces of the eager Chautauquans lifted a little at the mention of Rome and the Pyramids, and a sweet reasonableness began to take possession of them. The leader continued: “We leave Paris at nine o’clock this evening, and in twenty-four hours we shall be in Turin. We shall cross the Alps by the Mont Cenis tunnel, and you will have a glimpse of Switzerland, and be in the midst of grand mountain scenery all day to-morrow. When we reach Turin we will decide which route we will take to Rome, for the City of the Seven Hills must be our chief objective point.”

Packing to resume the journey was now the business of the day. Our practical member made all necessary arrangements for us. She visited the Gare de Lyons that afternoon and had our tickets visÈd, for we had been assured that, disagreeable as it might be to join a superintended party which moves according to an inexorable plan, it would save us some annoyance to buy the tickets issued by any of the responsible tourist organizations and then there would be no awkward mistakes at small railway stations, where only Italian was spoken, and we found that this arrangement worked admirably. Our energetic little woman of business, with her imperturbable good nature and winning smile, which always melted the hearts of stern railway officials, came back to the pension with the assurance that everything was satisfactorily arranged, and by judiciously feeing the guard we should be able to secure a railway carriage to ourselves.

Twenty-four hours of railway travel and we reach Turin, fatigued enough for a good night’s rest at the Hotel Trombetta. We make an early visit the next morning to the Royal Palace, the residence of Victor Emmanuel, while Turin was the capital of Italy, which position she held from 1859 until 1865. The palace has the plainest possible exterior, but the long suites of apartments are fitted up in a lavish manner, and these rooms are reached by a magnificent marble stair-case. Glass chandeliers, gilded and frescoed ceilings, beautifully polished floors of inlaid woods, were the main characteristics of the rooms. A marble bust of the wife of Victor Emmanuel showed a sweet, womanly face, with a queenly pose of the head. Here were many interesting portraits and miniatures of the house of Savoy—among others one of the Princess de Lamballe, who suffered such cruel indignities from the Paris mob for being the friend of Marie Antoinette. Powdered hair, rolled back from the forehead with a long curl each side of the neck, gentle brown eyes and a refined face, with a touch of sadness in it, which seemed to forebode her fate, made up the picture.

In our drive about the city we talk over our future route. “There are two ways to Rome,” says the leader, “and we should not long hesitate which of them to take if it were not for this serious embarrassment in respect to time. Our inclinations point to Milan, Venice and Florence, but it is not safe to trust ourselves in those alluring places, so we will proceed to-morrow to Genoa, and thence to Pisa, and so on to Rome.” The Chautauquans are becoming philosophic. “The Continent of Europe another time!” saves them from despair under these repeated disappointments.

Genoa, with its memories of Christopher Columbus, is not a very attractive place except for those who have a fondness for silver filigree jewelry. Our few hours here gave us opportunity to visit several gaudily decorated churches; to see the exteriors of palaces, cold and cheerless-looking under a gray sky, though warmth and sunlight might have made the courts pleasant, in which we caught glimpses of fountains, statuary and colonnades. In the Andrea Doria palace we saw a portrait of the old admiral with his favorite cat, but most of the rooms were desolate and unadorned.

The journey from Genoa to Pisa is a succession of tunnels, eighty in all, many of them of considerable length, so that it seemed as though we were traveling by night instead of day. The views of the Mediterranean were aggravatingly beautiful as we emerged from the tunnels, but we had only time to exclaim and spring forward toward the window when our enthusiasm would receive a sudden check as we plunged into darkness again. Now and then our unobstructed vision permitted us to see these bold promontories, through which our course lay, bordering the coast and pushing their sharp tusks into the sea. At Massa the Marble Mountains, rivalling those of Carrara, contrasted finely with nearer green slopes.

The objects of chief interest at Pisa center in one square. Here are the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistery and the Campo Santo. These beautiful buildings, from four to six hundred years old, have been wonderfully preserved from the ravaging tooth of time. The interior of the Cathedral is a basilica with nave, double aisles and elliptical dome over the center. Its sixty-eight columns are ancient Roman and Greek, and were captured by the Pisans in war. The flat ceiling of the nave, though richly gilded, marred the beauty of the otherwise noble interior, but the aisles were vaulted. The swaying of the bronze lamp which hangs in the nave is said to have suggested to Galileo the idea of the pendulum.

A burial place in Italy, called a Campo Santo, is arranged in the form of a square with covered arcades like the cloisters of a cathedral, and a sunny, open central space. The one at Pisa is particularly sacred because the earth in the open court was brought from Jerusalem. We wandered through these aisles filled with mortuary marbles and tablets enjoying the reflection of the sunlight falling through the beautiful tracing of the open, round-arched windows. The frescoes by Orcagna representing Death and the Last Judgment, were fascinating from their horrible realistic treatment. The Baptistery, a circular, dome-crowned building, is a perfect gem inside and out, exquisitely finished as an ivory toy. There is a wonderful echo here which comes floating down from the dome like music from an angelic choir. Two hundred and ninety-four steps lead to the top of the famous Leaning Tower, and one is repaid for the ascent by a wide outlook on the Apennines; the city itself through which the Arno winds; the cluster of fine buildings at the base, and the flashing Mediterranean six miles distant. And so, closing our eyes repeatedly to see if we could reproduce in mental vision the picture before us, we bade farewell to Pisa and are next to be found at Rome.

In order to begin acquaintance with a new city, it is a good plan to take at the outset what the guide books call an “orientation drive,” obtaining in this way a general idea of the topography of the city, a first vivid glance at the buildings, monuments, and ruins, closing the drive with an outlook over the city from some commanding height. Starting from the head of the Corso, the principal business street of Rome, we paused at the column of Marcus Aurelius, then on to the Piazza Venezia and Trajan’s Forum. At the Roman Forum the nineteenth century grows dim as the imagination calls up the orators, senators, warriors, and famous men of old Rome, who once paced among these gray, broken pillars. Jerusalem and her woes come before us as we reach the Arch of Titus, and see in bas-relief the pictured story of the capture of the golden candlestick, the sacred vessels, and the treasures of the Temple. To this day pious Jews will not pass under this arch. It is but a step from here to the Colosseum, where again we are reminded of the overthrow of the Holy City, for this huge amphitheater was built by the enforced labor of sixty thousand captive Jews. The best piece of descriptive literature to read here is found in Richter’s Titan. Past St. John Lateran and S. Maria Maggiore, we drive down the Via Nazionale, a broad, new street lined with stately marble buildings, called palaces, in one of which we find most agreeable and healthy quarters during our stay in Rome. Arriving in front of St. Peter’s, we can not resist the temptation of entering for a moment. The fountains were shot through by the brilliant mid-day sunlight as we walked up the magnificent piazza to the largest and most imposing, if not the most beautiful, cathedral in the world. One who regards Gothic architecture as the best expression in stone of religious aspiration, is not likely to be enthusiastic over St. Peter’s. The proportions are so harmonious that the vastness of the interior fails to impress the new comer. It is only by repeated visits, and by studying St. Peter’s in sections, that one appreciates the size, and comes to discover that modern places of worship could easily find room in a single arm of this gigantic cross. Colored glass, instead of these barn-like windows, would be an improvement, although the broad shafts of white light falling across the high altar made a fine effect. Priests in black, priests in white, and rope-girdled monks move noiselessly about. They kneel in the various chapels: they kiss the well-worn, extended foot of the bronze statue of St. Peter, and descend to the shrine where, according to Church tradition, the apostle is actually buried.

Leaving the cathedral, we drive up a pleasant, winding road, past terraces of century plants and curious cacti, to S. Pietro, in Montorio, where from the piazza we obtain such an outlook as would be hard to surpass, embracing the tremendous sweep from St. Peter’s dome to the flats of the Campagna. All Rome is at our feet. The Apennines from Soracte to the Alban Mount are bathed in sunlight, shadow and shower. Historic villages lie along the slopes, nestling in the valleys, and crowning the hill-tops. The giants of the past move through the spiritual sky and hover over this ancient city where they lived, and suffered, and died. The view from the terrace of the Pincian is justly celebrated, but it does not equal the outlook from this height.

If one desires to use his time in Rome to the best advantage let him have nothing to do with half-educated guides, whose information is often untrustworthy. There are promenade lectures given by well-informed English archÆologists, who have spent years in Rome, making a special study of the ruins and modern excavations. The Chautauqua quartette were fortunate in securing the services of Mr. S. Russell Forbes, whose recent book, entitled “Rambles in Rome,” gains for him the gratitude of all those who have felt the need of just such a printed guide. Our first morning was spent at the Roman Forum and Colosseum, under Mr. Forbes’s delightful leadership. Starting from the temple of Castor and Pollux we went over the whole ground of the Forum, pausing before the mound which covers the ashes of the great CÆsar, seeing the rostrum from which Mark Antony made his funeral oration, and also the rostrum where Cicero delivered his famous speeches, and on which, after his assassination, his head and hands were nailed, “that everybody might see them in the very place where he had formerly harangued with so much vehemence.” We walked over the identical pavement used in the days when Rome was mistress of the world, and saw ruts in the stone made by chariot wheels, when England was but a barbarous isle. The Flavian Amphitheater, known to us as the Colosseum, received this name from the colossal statue of Nero, that stood near, and it was first spoken of in this way by Venerable Bede, of England. Byron is responsible for the mis-spelling of the word, which he writes Coliseum. Mr. Forbes thinks there is no evidence that Christians suffered in this arena, with the exception of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. The cross which formerly stood in the center is now removed, and the excavations have revealed three parallel curving walls, which were put up by the Emperor Commodus, who boasted that he could kill an hundred lions with as many javelins. Standing in safety on one of these high walls the beasts were led out to meet the cruel, murderous spears cast at them with unerring aim by this brutal emperor. From the upper gallery one can look down on what Richter calls “the crater of this burnt out volcano” and imagine the vast Amphitheater in the year of its dedication, A. D. 80, when the games continued for one hundred days, and 5,000 beasts were slain, while from 80,000 to 100,000 spectators crowded these now deserted spaces. Visiting the Colosseum by moonlight a solemn hush broods over the place where was once such abounding, riotous life, the roar of wounded and infuriated wild beasts, mingling with the death-groans of gladiators and martyrs. The silence is broken by the musical monotone of a tolling church bell, suggesting the new light which had just risen on the world when this amphitheater was in process of construction, and which has been the chief force in extinguishing the desire for such brutal and bestial exhibitions.

It is a brilliantly blue morning and the Chautauquans are in high spirits, for at 10 o’clock they are to start in open carriages, with Mr. Forbes as guide, for the Appian Way and the Catacombs. They first visit the baths of Caracalla, which even in ruins give one some conception of the magnificence of Rome under the Empire. These sunken mosaic pavements are still beautiful, the vacant niches suggest the fine works of art that once adorned them, and the grass-grown arches and walls, over which rooks and jackdaws now fly, speak of the gay life that once assembled here. It was a vast structure covering a mile square, and accommodating 1,600 bathers at once. Here were not only every conceivable kind of bath known to us moderns, but rooms for games, reading and conversation, each of these most elegantly fitted up, and on top of all were the gardens. It was a place of fashionable resort, where the pleasure-loving Romans could spend their days. Built by the emperor, it was then thrown open free to all, in order to curry favor with the people.

The Appian Way is lined with temples, villas and tombs. As it was against the law to bury inside the walls, the ancient Romans were accustomed to place their dead on either side of the principal roads leading from the city. At the despoiled tomb of the Scipios we each of us took a lighted candle and went down into gloomy, subterranean passages, to see the niches which once held the sarcophagi of Scipio Barbatus, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and other distinguished members of the Scipio family.—

The treasures of this tomb have been carried to the Vatican Museum.

At the Columbaria we walked through blossoming hedges of pink roses to the great sepulchers for those whose bodies were burned as was customary during the first centuries of the Christian era, although even then the distinguished Patrician families followed the ancient mode of interment. This early cremation did not consume the body to powder as in our days, but the bones were left and gathered into an urn. These funeral vases were placed in little niches, resembling the nests in a modern pigeon-house, and therefore called Columbaria. Here were placed the remains of the officers of CÆsar’s household—we read one inscription to the barber of the mighty Julius, and other names are familiar from St. Paul’s letters. Tryphena, Tryphosa, Onesimus—are these the funeral urns of the persons mentioned by the apostle? So our learned guide was inclined to think, and we were well pleased to believe it possible.

The Catacombs of St. Callixtus was our next stopping place, and here again we each received a lighted taper, and forming a procession descended out of the gladsome light of day into the gloomy bowels of the earth—the burial place, and, as many think, the hiding place of the first converts to Christianity. We wind in and out a mazy labyrinth, excavations on either side of us in the soft greenish brown tufa for graves, one above another, and of irregular size. Many of these graves were rifled by barbarians for the treasure supposed to be contained therein. The sarcophagi and slabs have been carried to museums, especially to the Lateran, where, on another occasion, we studied the touching inscriptions, some of which were evidently wrought by affection and not by skilled workmen. Some frescoes remain in the Catacombs which are interesting from their very rudeness, showing that the Christians would not employ pagan art for their sacred places. Coming to the Chapel of the Bishops, we see engraved in beautiful characters this inscription, put up by Pope Damasus: “Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a number of the holy. These honored sepulchers enclose the bodies of the saints, their lofty souls the palace of heaven has received.... Here lie youths and boys, old men and their chaste descendants, who kept their virginity undefiled. Here I, Damasus, wished to have laid my limbs, but feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints.” From the chapel a gallery leads to the Crypt of St. Cecilia. When Paschal I. had the body of this martyred virgin removed in 820, it was found “fresh and perfect as when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad in rich garments mixed with gold, with linen cloths, stained with blood, rolled up at her feet.” Although there are shafts for ventilation and light, how good it seemed to reach once more the upper air and the flood of sunlight, and to see the blue sky and green earth!

On our way to the Three Taverns we pass the tomb of Seneca, the tombs of the Horatii and the Curatii, and the circular tomb of Cecilia Metella, on which Paul himself must have looked. We drive under the Arch of Drusus, which spanned the road in the apostle’s day, and so came to the Three Taverns, where the brethren met Paul, “whom, when he saw, he thanked God and took courage.” Crimson-tipped daisies were blossoming on the site of this famous meeting-place; the afternoon sun was shining on the Sabine hills and Alban Mount, and a happy lark, thinking the spring had come in this soft air, warbled to us his divine melody as our thought took flight across the centuries to that day when the apostle to the Gentiles paused here on his way to imperial Rome, where he lost his earthly life, but the message that he brought conquered CÆsar, and will yet conquer the world.

The festival of All Saints Day came while we were in Rome, and we found shops and museums more generally closed than on the Christian Sabbath. Driving to the Capitoline Museum, with Merivale and Suetonius to read in presence of the portrait busts of the Roman emperors, we found the doors closed on account of the festa, and when we reached St. Luke’s Academy there was no admission; so we concluded to go with the crowd, and in the dark, dull and dismal November afternoon we drove to the Campo Verano, one of the largest cemeteries of Rome. This is the day that the rich and poor visit their dead, carrying flowers to decorate the graves. For a mile or more the road was lined with young men and maidens, old men and children of the middle and poorer classes, who were walking to the cemetery, carrying wreaths, while the occupants of elegant private carriages were almost invisible under heaps of choice flowers. We made slow progress, as the street was blocked with vehicles and pedestrians, all moving in one direction, while vociferous beggars, halt, lame, and blind, stretched out their hands, crying lustily for charity. The walls along the way were covered with wreaths of natural and artificial flowers, with bead wreaths and wreaths of immortelles for sale to those who had failed to supply themselves at the outset of their journey. Leaving our cab at the cemetery gates, we walked through the covered Campo Santo, in which were many elaborate monuments, and on most of these there was some likeness of the deceased, either a portrait in oil, or a bust, or bas-relief in marble. A life-size sitting figure of a young mother holding her little son in her arms, who was reaching up to kiss her, was the work of a distinguished Milanese sculptor in memory of his lost wife and child, and these were both portraits. Another very touching representation was of a lovely young woman lying dead on a funeral bier, while her little child was standing at one side on tip-toe, pulling the drapery of the couch, as if trying to wake the sleeper. The graves of the poor were simply marked by a black cross, on which was a number, instead of a name, but even over these graves a burning lamp was suspended. In the funeral chapel we heard the distant chanting of invisible monks.

Excursions to Tivoli and to the Alban Mount; sunny afternoons in the ornamental gardens and park-like enclosures of the villas Borghese and Albani; drives to the Pincian, where there is music and a gay moving throng of vehicles and pedestrians; study of ancient art at the Capitoline Museum and the Vatican; repeated visits to the Sistine Chapel, where one comes under the spell of Michael Angelo’s mighty genius; a day’s wandering over the ruined palaces of the CÆsars on Palatine Hill; a search for the masterpieces of art in churches and palaces; diligent reading during the evenings of Merivale and Suetonius, Grimm’s “Michael Angelo” and Hare’s “Walks,” a re-reading of Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun,” and a dozen lessons in Italian—such were the absorbing and delightful occupations of the Chautauquans during their stay in Rome. And now it was time to start for Naples, in order to catch the next steamer to Alexandria. The statues on St. John Lateran stood out against the blue sky as we moved out of Rome. The desolate Campagna; the long, solemn stretch of aqueduct arches; the tombs on the Appian Way; the sun sinking as a ball of fire; the dome of St. Peter’s, visible long after the city had been blotted out—these were our last views of the Eternal City. We arrive in Naples at 11 o’clock, but there is delay about luggage, and it is midnight when we reach the Hotel Royal des Etrangers, after a long rattling drive from the railway station. Stepping out on the balcony, under the clear star-lit heavens, we see the matchless curve of the Bay of Naples, and Vesuvius sending its dull, red glare into the holy night. The next morning we take an early train to Pompeii, and on the journey read Pliny’s description of the three days of horror in the year 79, when the great eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is a short walk from the station to the gates of the ruined town, and after escaping from the importunate beggars, the desolation of these deserted streets is all the more impressive. Everything seems on a diminutive scale here—the streets narrow, houses small, and the sleeping apartments no larger than those on an ocean steamer. The people spent most of their time in the open courts, which were surrounded by covered arcades and were a necessary part of every dwelling. Comparatively few of the adornments of these Pompeiian homes remain in situ, the choicest specimens of art found here have been carried off to the museums. A fountain in the court, a mutilated statue, a broken pillar, a bit of mosaic pavement, a partially obliterated fresco-painting are all that remain to tell of the beauty of the city so suddenly buried, with 2,000 of its inhabitants, under twenty feet of ashes and lava. One of the most interesting spots was where the Roman soldier was discovered, grasping his spear and remaining faithful to his post, although he might well have supposed that the last great day had come. In the museum at Pompeii the most striking and interesting objects are casts of eight human corpses, and one of the body of a dog, fearfully twisted and contorted in the final death agony. The casts were obtained in 1863, by an ingenious experiment made by Signor Fiorelli, the present director of the excavations. While the soft parts of the bodies had decayed, their forms frequently remained imprinted on the ashes, which afterward hardened. The bones of a body thus imbedded were carefully removed and the cavity filled with plaster, and thus the figures and attitudes of the poor creatures in the death struggle have been preserved.

On the third day after our arrival in Naples we set sail for Alexandria. The soft, bright skies of Southern Italy smile on us as we stand on the rear deck of the French steamer “Mendoza,” looking back at Naples as we slowly move down the bay, Vesuvius every now and then sending out a solemn, thunderous boom. We read with delight and amazement Richter’s marvelous word paintings in “Titan” of places which he never saw but with the mind’s eye. We sail out of the two encircling arms which are thrust into the blue waters, Ischia and Pozzuoli, the modern name for Puteoli, on the one side, Castellamare and Sorrento on the other. The rocky island of Capri is passed; we peer along the shore of the Gulf of Salerno hoping to get a glimpse of PÆstum and its famous temple, and on we go, the white gulls following us into the open sea.

As a preparation for Alexandria we read Ebers’s “Egyptian Princess,” and like true Chautauquans re-read Charles Kingsley’s “Hypatia.” We are so unfortunate as to arrive at the end of our voyage just after dusk, and although the lights of the city are in view, we are forced to cast anchor and remain on shipboard another night. As the twilight falls upon us, the great spirits of the past begin to loom up in the sky—the CÆsars and Ptolemies; Pompey and Antony’s fascinator, Cleopatra; Euclid and Theocritus; Cyril and Apollos; the early Christian Church struggling with Greek learning and Jewish prejudice. Such is the atmosphere of the early ages of this ancient city. Under the Ptolemies and the CÆsars, Alexandria was a world-renowned city of 500,000 souls, adorned with the arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt, while its schools of learning far outshone all those of the more ancient cities. At the beginning of the third century it began to wane and from the time it was taken by Omar in A. D. 641, its commerce and importance sunk rapidly. The discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope completed its ruin.

Anchoring outside the quay we were quickly surrounded by a crowd of row-boats, with black-faced sailors in a picturesque costume of white full trowsers, with red jackets and sashes, and red and white turbans. These boats brought to our ship several visitors, who came to meet their friends, and it was amusing to see the Oriental salutations and effusiveness. In our drive of two hours, strange sights met us at every turn, and the street scenes were most curious and interesting. The veiled women, with their black, flashing, restless eyes; their flowing robes of black or blue or white, and their stately gait, made one long to see their entire countenance and to know what is their manner of life. There is every variety of color here, from the intense black of the Nubian to the delicate yellow tinge of the Octoroon. Some of the children’s faces were attractive, but most of the old faces were so haggard and evil that it was painful to catch a glimpse of them. Groves of the date palm, the luscious, freshly-picked fruit of which seemed to us far more tempting than the leeks and onions after which the children of Israel lusted; donkeys, carrying their riders far back on their haunches, and pursued by runners who give the poor animal a shove when he slackens speed; camels, with their slow gait and quizzical expression, as much as to say, “Don’t you think I’m handsome? Isn’t life a great joke?”; merchants, sitting calmly in their booths, smoking their nargilehs with the utmost unconcern as to custom—these were a few of a multitude of objects new and striking that attracted our attention.

Pompey’s Pillar is a solid shaft of polished red syenite, which resembles Scotch granite, and placed on an eminence lifts itself grandly against the deep blue of the sky. But it was erected in Diocletian’s time, and that seems quite modern here. The Pasha’s palace and harem are of stucco, and far from being impressive or elegant. We drove through the grounds, which have a fountain in the center, a few sickly looking plants, and a fine view of the sea.

Shepheard’s hotel in Cairo has been for many years the favorite stopping place of English travelers, and one finds here a degree of comfort and cleanliness not often to be met in this part of the world. Here the English language is spoken by all the servants, and, although our method of summoning a waiter is unknown, the Oriental fashion of clapping the hands is quite as effective. Mounted on donkeys we rode to the museum at Boulak, where are to be found the best specimens of Egyptian ancient art. Massive and grand are some of these sitting figures of kings who reigned thousands of years ago. One, with the body of a sphinx, is said to represent the Pharaoh under whom Joseph attained power and position in Egypt. Exquisitely wrought and polished are these black granite statues, but there is no soul in the stone. The royal mummies recently found near Thebes are here, and we saw these hoar monarchs as they lay in their varnished and hieroglyph-inscribed coffins of sycamore wood, wrapped in the shrouds of fine linen in which their embalmers had enswathed them, wearing on their faces their sharp-cut and life-like effigies, encircled with the flowers and garlands which had been placed there by the hands of mourners over three thousand years ago. Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the Bondage lay, holding in his right hand, appropriately and significantly, a scourge of four cords. He was the only one of the royal group who bore this emblem. Here, too, is Thothmes III., that Pharaoh who ordered the construction of the obelisks, one of which stands on the Thames embankment, and the other in our own New York. In another case lies the second king of the nineteenth dynasty, who occupied the throne during the grandest era of Egyptian history. He was the builder of the “Hall of Columns,” at Karnac, the most magnificent temple in all Egypt, and one of the ten or twelve architectural wonders of the world. It is a significant fact that MenephtÂh, the son and successor of the Pharaoh of the Bondage, is not in the group. The question which naturally rises to the Biblical student is, “Are we to seek for him in the Red Sea?”

Starting one bright morning at 7 o’clock in an open barouche, with Juseph HakÈ as dragoman, a tall stately Egyptian as coachman, with the imperial buttons on his coat, for he was formerly in the service of Ismail Pasha, and an Arab runner to clear the passage through the narrow and crowded Cairo streets, we drove in the fresh morning air over the arched stone bridges of the Nile, with their bronze lions, the gift of France, and on smooth, straight avenues lined with lebeck trees, until we had accomplished the ten miles which lie between Cairo and the Pyramids. Barricades of corn-husks enclosing heaps of yellow corn, and the busy, dark-skinned huskers were a noticeable feature by the roadside. We could not look at a child without his little hand was extended with the call for backsheesh, and sometimes our carriage was followed by half a dozen girls and boys whose cries, when they got short of breath in running, would be simply “’sheesh, ’sheesh.” Our first view of the Pyramids of Gheezeh was over the lebeck trees and corn-husks, and they seemed close at hand, although then five miles away. Among the three pyramids of Gheezeh the pyramid of Cheops, or the “Great Pyramid,” is by far the most important. It is the pyramid as the mysterious Sphinx at its base is the sphinx. It is probably the oldest, and certainly the largest building in the world. Egyptologists differ widely in their chronology. Mariette puts the building of Cheops’s pyramid back to B. C. 4235, Brugsch to B. C. 3733, while Piazzi Smyth places it in the age of Abraham and Melchisedek, B. C. 2170.

As soon as we left our carriage we were approached by the sheik of the village and a dozen swarthy Arabs, who, with their usual vociferous volubility, tried to prove that we, each of us, needed three men to help us up the pyramid. One took hold of each hand, and the other pushed and lifted us on the highest stones of this rough staircase. Pausing frequently for breath, we consumed three-quarters of an hour in the ascent, but the summit reached, one speedily forgets the physical effort required in the grand, solemn, far-reaching prospect over green plain and sandy desert—the living and the dead. Far away on the horizon line of the desert appear the sharp outlines of ten or twelve pyramids. Near us is a pyramid almost as large as the one on which we stand, the smooth casing still remaining on the top, and making that portion of it inaccessible. Clearly defined is the line of verdure which marks the overflow of the river. From June to October this broad plain is inundated to the depth of from ten to fifteen feet. This remarkable rise of the Nile waters is occasioned by the tropical rains, and the melting of the snows on the high mountain ranges at the equator. The rise and the retreat are equally rapid. In May the volume of its waters is only one-twentieth of that in October. The eternal youth of Nature, “as fresh as on creation’s morn,” and the hoary past contrast here most vividly. Where are they who planned and reared these mighty monuments? Gone and forgotten as we too shall be. The Arabs sat by themselves and chattered in low tones when they saw we wanted to be alone, but now and then they would gather around us like children, asking in very good English all sorts of questions, some in regard to America, its extent, climate, the cost of getting there, and prices paid to a laboring man.

The dark, slippery, suffocating, steep slope which leads to the King’s Chamber is a much more trying journey than that to the summit, and yet one can hardly understand the Pyramids without exploring this interior room, which contains nothing but an empty stone sarcophagus. Over this rifled coffin we repeated that portion of the fifteenth of 1st Corinthians, which relates to the resurrection, while the four Arabs held the candles in perfect silence, and looked into our faces with a kind of wondering awe.

After a bountiful lunch in our carriage, we walked to the Sphinx, and saw that face, sadly mutilated now, but still with an expression of cheerful courage, which has looked across these dreary wastes under the midnights and the noons, while men have come and gone like shadows, and kingdoms have been born and fallen to decay. The body of the Sphinx is the natural rock, here and there adapted by a little carving, or the addition of masonry, and is one hundred and forty feet in length. The head is carved out of the solid rock, and measures thirty feet from brow to chin, and fourteen feet across. The Sphinx is merely a ruin of what he was when sacrifices were offered on the altar between his lion paws of fifty feet in length. And yet he makes an overpowering impression of majestic repose, and is worthy of the name given him by the Arabs—the Father of Terror, or Immensity.

[To be continued.]