peasants to sell their property to him only, and at his price. Soldiers are quartered in all the principal villages, to enforce a due observance of this law. All the boats are likewise monopolized by him, and at his price. Gun boats are stationed at the narrow passes of the river, to prevent the passage of any barks unless laden for the pasha. The Arabs, Copts, &c., who become rich in spite of this oppressive system, are allowed but little enjoyment of their wealth; if any one of them has built a fine house, it often happens that he is desired to turn out, and give it up to some Greek, Turk, or perhaps to an European consul, and should he not immediately obey, his head is the forfeit."-IRBY and MAngles, p. 161.

"Nebuchadnezzar and Cambyses, Alexander and the Ptolemies, the Roman and the Saracen, the Memlook and the Turk, have followed each other in the moving pageant of history; and now, the pasha against the sultan, Turk against Turk, alien against alien, are playing the game for Egyptian sovereignty. But still no

6

prince of the land of Egypt' rises to fill the throne; still it is a base kingdom,'-'the basest of kingdoms ;'its sceptre has departed; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt,' saith the prophet of the Lord.

"Here is prophecy, the fulfilment of which, he who runs may read."—NOZRANI in Egypt.

:

"There are no barns in Egypt the peasant being sure of fair weather at harvest-home, the corn is immediately thrashed, and the grain is piled up in immense hills, encircled by a wall. The birds are freely allowed their share, though, during the time it is ripening, their claims are disputed by children, who are placed on elevated mud-hillocks, scattered in all directions throughout the plains; here they bawl, and fling stones by means of a sling, to deter the feathered robbers from their depredations."-IRBY and MANGLES.

SIHOR-RIVER NILE.

SCENERY UP THE RIVER.

SCRIPTURE NOTICES.

"PHARAOH dreamed, and behold, he stood by the river."-Gen. xli. 1. (Read to ver. 4.)

"(Jochebed) took for (Moses) an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink . . . and the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it."-Exod. ii. 3, 5.

"And (Moses) lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river... and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood, and the fish that was in the river died."-Exod. vii. 20, 21.

"Sihor, which is before Egypt."-Joshua xiii. 3.; (1 Chron. xiii. 5; Isa. xxiii. 3.)

"And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up. And they shall turn the rivers far away, and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up; the reeds and flags shall wither. The paper-reeds by the brooks . . . shall wither... the fishers also shall mourn."—Isa. xix. 5-8.

...

"What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor?"-Jer. ii. 18.

"Thus said the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, King of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself."-Ezek. xxix. 3; (Isa. xxvii. 1.)

"It shall rise up wholly as a flood, and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt."-Amos viii. 8. (ix. 5.)

"The Nile! now then, for the first time I felt that I was in the land of Egypt; and oh, what a crowd of glorious associations rushed across my mind as I gazed upon the dark waves of that noble river rolling calmly onwards to the sea, unchanged and unchanging amidst the strange vicissitudes that had befallen the valley it fertilizes! Thus had it flowed in the days when the Pharaohs ruled gloriously amidst the palaces of Thebes and Memphis, and when the realm of Egypt was the greatest among the nations of the earth; and even thus, when she became successively the prey of the Ethiopian, the Persian, the Macedonian, the Roman, the Saracen, and the Turkish conqueror! And upon those discoloured waters had the eyes of Thothmes, and Sesostris, and Cambyses, and Alexander, and Cleopatra, and Julius Cæsar, and Omar, and Saladin, and Selim, rested complacently, as upon the richest jewel of their diadems! and still it flowed on, calm and undisturbed, while degeneration slowly crept along its shores, and one by one, its great lights had become extinguished, and at last 'darkness had overshadowed the land,' and the prophecy of Ezekiel had been fulfilled to the very letter; and from the first it had become the last among nations, because of the wickedness of its rulers. 'It shall be the basest of kingdoms, neither shall it exalt itself any more among the nations, for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. Her power shall come down-I will sell the land into the hand of the wicked, I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it.'

"While these shadows of the past were flitting across my mind, my eyes wandered over the flat and monotonous banks, diversified only by occasional groves of the graceful date-palm, a Sheikh's tomb here and there, and a few miserable mud villages. But strings of loaded camels, herds of buffaloes, and troops of halfnaked fellahs, raising water to irrigate their fields in

the same primitive manner that was in use among the patriarchs, gave an eastern stamp to the landscape."

Describing another portion of the Nile towards Thebes, the same writer remarks: "A low narrow strip of cultivated land borders the river, like a green ribbon, on either side occasionally a mud village, a Sheikh's tomb, a colony of pigeon-houses, a grove of palm-trees, (the doum or Theban palm has here replaced the graceful date-palms of Lower Egypt,) a sakkiah, or a shadoof, (both of them contrivances for raising the water from the river) diversifies the scene. And beyond, nought is to be seen but the barren sands of the Libyan desert, stretching far away to the west, and those of the desert of Suez, traversed by a ridge of hills, bounding the prospect to the east."

On reaching Nubia," the scenery on each side of the Nile began to assume a very picturesque appearance— mountainous and almost Alpine in its character to the east; on the opposite bank, the eternal desert, (with its golden sands,) and the river's edge on either side fringed with the castor-oil plant,1 and the prickly mimosa upon which the patient camel browses with delight. Long plantations of date and doum-palms tower above, the fruit of which forms all the riches, and the chief substance of the poor Nubians, among whom bread is an unknown luxury. Every now and then we stopped at some wretched village for milk, eggs, and poultry."

Shortly after, this author continues, we have now followed the course of the Nile for a thousand miles from Alexandria to this place, and not one tributary stream has fallen into the great river during the whole of that distance; its waters rolling onward through the long valley they fertilize, have remained pure from all contact with meaner streams: like the great Creator, at whose command its waters sprang forth from their yet undiscovered sources, the Nile is alone in its bounty; inexhaustible in its beneficence, it

1 Jonah's Gourd. See "Scripture Natural History."

gives all, dispensing riches, prosperity, life, whithersoever it goes, and receives nothing in return."-Temples and Tombs of Egypt, by MRS. ROMER.

"The banks of the river between Ibrim and Ebsamboul are beautifully strewed with the yellow and purple acacia, forming thick hedges, which have a very pleasing effect a species of tamarisk is also common here."

Egypt at present presents a very different appearance to what it did when we went upward; the Nile having overflowed, all the villages are insulated, and are invariably surrounded with date-palm-trees, which partly conceal the mud huts, and give a pleasing and lively appearance to the face of the country. The river also, in some places, appears of prodigious width, whole plains being overflowed for many miles. We were peculiarly