and dromedaries, that for several minutes we were knocked and shoved about and tumbled against the stalls without being able to advance a step. We were about to make a retreat, when we saw the Cadí, as described in the Arabian Nights, making his rounds at the head of his kaffas (attendants). No sooner did he perceive that the public way was obstructed than he proceeded to the thickest of the throng, and with admirable impartiality, he and his assistants commenced striking with their heavy clubs the backs of the beasts and the heads of the men, The means were efficacious, a practicable breach was made; the Cadí passed first, we followed, the crowd close behind us, like a river resuming its course. At about a hundred paces further on, the Cadí turned to the right, and we to the left; he to disperse some new crowd, we to make our way to the consul.

We pursued our course for nearly half an hour through narrow, irregular, tortuous streets, the houses of which have all projecting fronts, the successive floors coming out further and further to the very top, so that the upper space is so restricted as almost to exclude the light of day. We passed several mosques on our way, but they were generally unworthy of notice; there are only two or three in the entire city adorned with minarets; these are of no great height, and are destitute of galleries. The true believers were seated at their

thresholds, which a giaour had never crossed, either smoking or playing mangallah (a species of backgammon). Finally, after having spent nearly an hour in reaching our destination, that is to say in making less than a mile, we at last got to the consul. M. de Mimaut received us with perfect grace; a distinguished man of letters, an indefatigable antiquarian, a zealous defender not only of the rights but of the dignity of his nation, every Frenchman is sure to receive from him hospitality as a traveller and protection as a fellow-countryman. He received us in a large room, which had formerly been inha bited by Buonaparte, Kleber, Murat, Junot, and others of the bravest and most renowned generals of our expedition. Almost all of them had adopted, on their arrival, the habits of oriental life, and the use of coffee and the pipe, which constitute its most usual recreations. They smoked, sitting on the large divans, or low couches, which surround the room; we were shown, in different parts of the floor, the marks which the fire of their long pipes had left. I mention these details to show that even the most trifling particulars of our Egyptian expedition still remain in the memory of the inhabitants.

During an animated conversation, such as might be expected between fellow-countrymen meeting each other at the distance of a thousand leagues from their native land, M. Taylor explained the

reasons of his voyage, and the mission with which he was charged to the Pacha: we then sent for guides and donkeys, having been cured of our pedestrian tastes for this time at least, and proceeded to the gate Mahmoudie, which leads to old Alexandria. Raised above the mud, and peaceably installed in our saddles, we could indulge in observations more curious in Egypt than anywhere else. Everything was to us Parisians an object of surprise; the social and physical order seemed overturned; there were an earth and sky such as are seen nowhere else; a language which has no analogy to any of our languages; manners which exist in Egypt alone; a people that seems to have taken our mode of life with the wrong side out. With us, people wear their hair and shave their beard; the Mussulmans shave the head and let the beard grow. We punish bigamy and censure concubinage; they proclaim the one and set no bounds to the other.

Woman, in

our social system, is a spouse, a sister, a friend; in theirs she is only a slave, and the most wretched of all slaves; her life is spent in a prison, and no one but her master approaches her habitation; the more lovely she is, the more wretched is her life; her existence is suspended by a thread; if she raises her veil, her head rolls in the dust.

As we went out of the gate Mahmoudie, we turned a few steps aside to see a little hillock, which to

this day retains the pompous name of Fort Buonaparte. Alexandria is so level a town, that the French engineers had only to heap up a few shovels full of earth and crown them with a battery to force it to surrender.

Ancient Egypt, the Egypt that came down from Ethiopia with the Nile,-existed only in the ruins of Elephantina and Thebes. Memphis succeeded them, and under its walls saw the empire of the Pharaohs fall with Psammenitus, to be bequeathed by Cambyses to his successors. Darius ruled his empire extended from the Indus to the Euxine, and from Ethiopia to the Jaxartes. Continuing the policy of his predecessors, who, for a hundred and fifty years, held Asiatic Greece in servitude and assailed European Greece, sometimes with millions of men, and sometimes with gold and intrigues, Darius was dreaming of a third invasion, when in a province of this Greece, bounded on the east by mount Athos, on the west by Illyria, on the north by Hamus, and on the south by Olympus, a young monarch, twentyfive years of age, was found, who resolved to overturn this mighty empire, and accomplish what Cimon, Agesilaus, and Philip had attempted in vain. This young king was named Alexander.

He raises thirty thousand infantry, and four thousand five hundred cavalry; collects a fleet of a hundred and sixty galleys, takes provision for forty days,

sets out from Pella, marches along the coast of Amphipolis, passes the Strymon, crosses the Hebrus, and arrives in twenty days at Sestos; he debarks without opposition on the coast of Asia Minor, crowns with flowers the tomb of Achilles, his maternal ancestor, traverses the Granicus, defeats the satraps, slays Mithridates, subdues Mysia and Lydia, captures Sardis, Miletus, and Halicarnassus, subdues Galatia, traverses Cappadocia, and subjugates Cilicia; he encounters the Persians in the plains of Issus and drives them before him like chaff, goes up to Damascus, comes down to Sidon, takes and sacks Tyre, and drives thrice round the walls of Gaza, dragging behind his chariot the body of its governor Boetes, in imitation of the conduct of Achilles to Hector; he goes to Jerusalem and to Memphis, sacrifices to the God of the Jews and to the gods of the Egyptians, again descends the Nile, makes the tour of the Mareotic lake, and, having reached its northern limit, struck with the beauty of the place and the advantages of its situation, he decides on giving a rival to Tyre, and charges the architect Dinocrates to build a city, which shall bear the name of Alexandria.

The architect obeys; he traces an enclosure of fifteen thousand paces, to which he gives the form of a Macedonian cloak, and divides his city by two principal streets, that the Etesian winds, which come from the north, may cool it. The first of these