in a sea. To the east beyond the Nile is Cairo, its domes and minarets standing out against the background of the Mokattam hills, while to the west stretches far away the Libyan desert.

Overlooking this broad landscape, one can trace distinctly the line of the overflow of the Nile. Wherever the waters come, there is greenness and fertility; at the point where they cease, there is barrenness and desolation. It is a perpetual struggle between the waters and the sands, like that which is always going on in human history between barbarism and civilization.

In the Pyramids the two things which impress us most are their vast size and their age. As we stand on the top, and look down the long flight of steps which leads to the valley below, we find that we are on the crest of a mountain of stone. Some idea of the enormous mass imbedded in the Great Pyramid may be gathered from the fact, ascertained by a careful computation (estimating its weight at seven millions of tons, and considering it a solid mass, its chambers and passages being as far as discovered but 1/2000th of the whole), that these blocks of stone, placed end to end, would make a wall a foot and a half broad, and ten feet high around England, a distance of 883 miles—a wall that would shut in the island up to the Scottish border.

And the Pyramids are not only the greatest, but the oldest monuments of the human race, the most venerable structures ever reared by the hand of man. They are far older than any of the monuments of Roman or Grecian antiquity. They were a marvel and a mystery then as much as they are to-day. How much older cannot be said with certainty. Authorities are not fully agreed, but the general belief among the later chronologists is that the Great Pyramid was built about two thousand one hundred and seventy years before the time of Christ, and the next in size a century later. Thus both have been standing about four thousand years. Napoleon was right therefore when he said to his soldiers before the battle fought with the Mamelukes under the shadow of the Pyramids, "From those heights forty centuries behold you." This disposes of the idea which some have entertained, that they were built by the children of Israel when they were in Egypt; for according to this they were erected two hundred years before even the time of Abraham. Jacob saw them when he came down into Egypt to buy corn; and Joseph showed them to his brethren. The subject Hebrews looked up to them in the days of their bondage. Moses saw them when he was brought up in the court of Pharaoh, and they disappeared from the view of the Israelites only when they fled to the Red Sea. They had been standing a thousand years when Homer sang of the siege of Troy; and here came Herodotus the father of history, four hundred years before Christ, and gazed with wonder, and wrote about them as the most venerable monuments of antiquity, with the same curious interest as Rawlinson does to-day. So they have been standing century after century, while the generations of men have been flowing past, like the waters of the Nile.

We visited the Great Pyramid again on our return from Upper Egypt, and explored the interior, but reserve the description to another chapter.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE NILE.

At last we are on the Nile, floating as in a dream, in the finest climate in the world, amid the monuments and memories of thousands of years. Anything more delightful than this climate for winter cannot be imagined. The weather is always the same. The sky is always blue, and we are bathed in a soft, delicious atmosphere. In short, we seem to have come, like the Lotus-eaters, to "a land where it is always afternoon." In such an air and such a mood, we left Cairo to make the voyage to which we had been looking forward as an event in our lives.

To travellers who desire to visit Egypt, and to see its principal monuments, without taking more time than they have at command, it is a great advantage that there is now a line of steamers on the Nile. The boats belong to the Khedive, but are managed by Cook & Son, of London, the well-known conductors of excursions in Europe and the East. They leave Cairo every fortnight, and make the trip to the First Cataract and back in twenty days, thus comprising the chief objects of interest within a limited time. Formerly there was no way to go up the Nile except by chartering a boat, with a captain and crew for the voyage. This mode of travel had many charms. The kind of boat—called a dahabeeah—was well fitted for the purpose, with a cabin large enough for a single family, or a very small party, and an upper deck covered with awnings; and as it spread its three-cornered lateen sail to the wind, it presented a pretty and picturesque object, and the traveller floated along at his own sweet will. This had only the drawback of taking a whole winter. But to leisurely tourists, who like to do everything thoroughly, and so take but one country in a year; or learned Egyptologists, who wish, in the intervals of seeing monuments, to make a special study of the history of Egypt; or invalids, who desire only to escape the damps and fogs of Britain, or the bitter cold of the Northern States of America—nothing can be imagined more delightful. There is a class of overworked men for whom no medicine could be prescribed more effectual than a winter idled away in this soothing, blissful rest. Nowhere in the world can one obtain more of the dolce far niente, than thus floating slowly and dreamily on the Nile. But for those of us who are wandering over all the earth, crossing all the lands and seas in the round world, this slow voyaging will not answer.

Nor is it necessary. One can see Egypt—not of course minutely, but sufficiently to get a general impression of the country—in a much less time. It must be remembered that this is not like other countries which lie four-square, presenting an almost equal length and breadth, but in shape is a mere line upon the map, being a hundred times as long as it is broad. To be exact, Egypt from the apex of the Delta—that is from Cairo—to the First Cataract, nearly six hundred miles, is all enclosed in a valley, which, on an average, is only six miles wide, the whole of which may be seen from the deck of a steamer, while excursions are made from day to day to the temples and ruins. It is a mistake to suppose that one sees more of these ruins on a boat because he is so much longer about it, when the extra time consumed is not spent at Denderah or Thebes, but floating lazily along with a light wind, or if the wind be adverse, tied up to a bank to await a change. In a steamer the whole excursion is well divided, ample time being allowed to visit every point of interest, as at Thebes, where the boat stops three days. As soon as one point is done, it moves on to another. In this way no time is lost, and one can see as much in three weeks as in a dahabeeah in three months.

Our boat carried twenty-seven passengers, of whom more than half were Americans, forming a most agreeable company. All on deck, we watched with interest the receding shores, as we sailed past the island of Rhoda, where, according to tradition, the infant Moses was found in the bulrushes; and where the Nilometer, a pillar planted in the water ages ago, still marks the annual risings and fallings of the great river of Egypt. The Pyramids stood out clear against the western sky. That evening we enjoyed the first of a series of glorious sunsets on the Nile. Our first sail was very short—only to Sakkara, a few miles above Cairo, where we lay to for the night, the boat being tied up to the bank, in the style of a steamer on the Mississippi.

Early the next morning our whole company