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tented us; and never did we spend a time more dreamy or more pleasingly inviting to sacred contemplation than those sunny days and moon-light nights which passed over us when we were

Nile.

་་

on the

What added to the pleasure was this, that we were told to expect only what was annoying. And indeed we were at first very much annoyed to learn that we had not only to procure ship and crew but also cooking utensils as well as provisions and servants for the voyage. But these things once provided they added much to our entertainment by the way. Ali Mustapha our servant though in person a rude substitude for Elias whom we had in that capacity in Greece, was a master of all works. And although his communications as to the store of provisions he was laying in sounded at first rather alarming, yet we soon found that it was only his English that was ruinous to his meaning, and not his purchases to us. The first day for instance, when we were passing a village, says Aliwe must go on shore here to get some eggs and milk very good Al" said we and while you go to get the eggs and milk we will take a walk through the village" accordingly we all went qu shore, but Ali was more successful in his purchases than we were in the gratification of our curiosity, for the village proved to be so abominably dirty that a lady could not venture into it, and I nearly suffered severely through my ignorance; for on seeing a large barn-like building with a number of patives looking downcast on the floor on which they were sitting, I was curious to know what they were about, and entering in, excited such a burst of indignation that but for the friendly assistance of one of them near the door who cried out to me in Italian to be gone as fast as possible, I know not what might have befallen me. When I went out the man that spoke Italian followed me, and from him I learned that I had trepassed into a mosque when they were waking a dead body, a deadly tresspass in a Frank I believe, but that in Egypt the fear of Maliomet Ali might go further to protect a Foreigner than the honour of the original Mahomet to destroy a christian, We were now in the boat waiting for Ali when he was sceu coming down the steep bank on which the village stood, carrying a large chattée full of milk, and a basket on his arm. For the milk however our appetite was quite gone after what we had seen of the village. We were glad therefore to remember the eggs; but yet not a little taken by surprise when, on asking whether he had got any, he answered yes Sir, two thousand !" On his shewing his purchase however we perceived he meant two dozen. And often afterwards we enjoyed Ali's blunders, in a similar manner, for he never was at a loss for English, though the words he knew were not more numerous than the eggs he had bought.

At the next village when we went ashore there happened another of these little incidents in the enjoyment of which after all, much of the pleasure of travelling consists. While we were wandering along the bank of the river (Ali being now bent on the purchase of mutton) two young Egyptian women came up to us each with a

little vase on her head and cymbals in her hands, which when they were beside us they began to beat, standing in the attitude of Car ryatides to which the vases on their heads obliged them. What they wanted we could not make out. But by and bye we found that they wanted me to hold out my hand to them. On my doing So, one of them took the little vase from her head and after working up into a fit state a black piginent which it contained she began to design a curious diagram on my wrist. This done, she took out a little instrument formed of two needles tied together with their points about an eighth part of an inch apart and so guarded that they could not pierce too deeply, and then began t8 prick in the black pigment into my skin. Very little of this sufficed; yet we were pleased with the encounter, especially when we observed that these chichantresses had the edges of their eyelids blackened with some sort of powder in imitation of fine black eyelashes, as is so frequently charged in the sacred writings against vain women in the east from the days of Jezebel downwards.

What with the unextinguishable interest of the river itself, the objects on the banks and such little adventures as these, our passage up the Nile passed very pleasingly away. And but that we were afraid of being too late at Suez to catch the Bombay steame I do not think we should have been so anxious as we were for the end of the voyage. In the month of March when we were there except a small grey cockroach (which immediately on its appearance we voted a clean creature) insects were not troublesome. And ever afterwards, we found it possible to escape, at least in a great measure from their annoyance, by trusting more to our plaids we had brought with us from Scotland than to the blankets and divans of the Hotels and Rest-houses.

On the third morning we were called out early from our cabin which was on the level of the deck, to see what the Rais called Gizeh, and on looking up the Nile into the extreme distance we saw three Pyramids of which the highest, as we after wards learned, was the great Pyramid of Cheops. This sight made us long more than ever for the end of one voyage. How provoking to be in Egypt and not to ascend the Pyramids! Yet such is the apprehension to which the overland traveller to India is sometimes exposed. In our case however it was an apprehension only, as will appear from our next, our concluding communication-which it is proposed to continue in the same gossippy style which has been adopted in this, in the hopes of carrying the render through a series of papers which must by this time be rather stale.

Notes from Home.

000

The Gatherer.

EMPLOYMENT.-If the Christian cannot glorify God by serving others, he knows that he has always something to do at home: some evil temper to correct, some wrong propensity to reform, some crooked practise to straight. en. He will never be at a loss for employment, while there is a sin or a misery in the world: he will never be idle while there is a distress to be releived in another, or a corruption to be cured in his own heart. We have employments assigned to us for every circumstance in life. When пе are alone, we have our thoughts to watch: in the family, our tempers; in company, our ton ques.— Hannah More. CALAMITIES.-As no calamity is too great for the power of Christianity to mitigate, so none is too small to experience its beneficial results.-Ibid.

HEATH.-Light, and wet, and wind, and cold, and noise, are what are enumerated among the discomforts of life. But these, and the like of these, are the natural whips and spurs which keep the living actions, as it were, awake: they form a part of man's natural condition: they form a part of the means which nature has contrived to keep up the activity of the machine to prevent its going to sleep, like a lazy horse, when he no longer hears the whip, or feels the spur. These discomforts, as they are called, are to be considered as so many incentives to exertion; for by exertion they not only (at least, many of them) cease to be discomforts, but become real pleasures. What, for instance, can be more delicious than the bright and frosty freshness of the air to the active skater? What more luxurious than water to the athletic Brimmer? According to Dr. Fordyce, "it is an universal maxim in the Black Art-that is, the art of cookery-never to employ one spice, if more can be procured." Now, pray open both your eyes, and mark the object of this;-" the object, in this case," says he, "being, to make the stomach bear a large quantity of food without nausea." So that the object of modern cookery is, to cram into the stomach as much as it can possibly hold, without being sick.-Said I not well, when I called modern cookery the "Black Art." Yet this is one of the elegancies of modern reA

finement! We stimulate our palates
with wine, that we may relish more
food; and then swallow more food,
that we may relish more wine:-
"We swallow firebrands in place of food,
And daggers of Crete are served us for con-
fections."

And this is feeding, according to the
improved method-according to the rules
and regulations of refined society! Why,
the very hog that revels in the red
garbage of the shambles-all hog, and
beast, obscene, and filthy as he is
is, nevertheless, not beast enough for
this! What difference does it make,
in the true spirit and very reality of
the thing-what real difference, I say,
does it make-whether you force down
your throat more food than you want,
by means of a glass of wine, or by
means of a long stick, as they cram
Norfolk turkeys? "The rose, by any
other name, would smell as sweet;" and
cramming is cramming, call it by what
name you please, and effect it how you
will.-Letters to Brother John.

ABSURDITIES.-To attempt to borrow money on the plea of extreme poverty, To lose money at play, and then fly into a passion about it. To ask the publisher of a new periodical how many copies he sells per week. To ask wine merchant how old his wine is. To make yourself generally disagreeable, and wonder that nobody will visit you, unless they gain some palpable advantage by it. To get drunk, and complain next morning of a headache. To spend your earnings on liquor, and wonder that you are ragged. To sit shivering in the cold because you won't have a fire till November. pose that reviewers generally read more To sup then the title-page of the works they praise or conderon. To judge of people's piety by their attendance church. To keep your clerks on miserable salaries, and wonder at their robbing yon. Not to go to bed when you are tired and sleepy, because "it is not bed time." To make your ser vants tell lies for you, and afterwards be angry because they tell lies for themselves. To tell your own secrets, and believe other people will keep them. To expect to make people ho. nest by hardening them in a jail, and afterwards sending them adrift without

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