in plain colors, appliqued on in strange
hieroglyphic designs. Rugs were on the ground and tapestries were used
as portieres, while the Turk or Egyptian sat in the doorway, apparently
indifferent to the passerby. To visit Heliopolis, we took a victoria and
an expert dragoman. We passed the viceroy's palace, with its lane of
lemon trees and the well cultivated plain of Metarrah, covered with
gardens. We stop at the virgin's tree, where Mary and the child rested
in their flight to Egypt. This, with the field around it, is watered by
a sakieh, which draws sweet and refreshing water from the bottom of a
well. With the cooling draught, we are presented with a tiny bunch of
flowers, for which we return a few piasters. A paling surrounds Mary's
Sycamore, under whose shade, tradition says, she washed the infant's
clothes, and that wherever a drop of water fell a Balsam tree sprang up.
All that remains of Heliopolis, the city of the sun, is the obelisk of
Usertesan. Heliopolis is the On of the Hebrews. It was here the Bennonz,
Phoenix, the fabled bird, with its gold and crimson plumage, without a
mate, came from Arabia every five hundred years to expire, and to be
reborn of its own ashes on the altar of the sun.

I left my companion in the victoria, and wended my way alone to the
obelisk, not far distant. It may be he preferred to contemplate on
Heliopolis' past glory, as he was fresh from Yale's classic shade, and
deep, no doubt, in its lore, rather than touch its hieroglyphics. To see
the bees so thickly settled there was of little satisfaction, but what
were we there for if not to touch, taste and handle? The climatic
effects will preserve this wonderful monument for ages, while their
consorts on the Thames and in New York Central Park already show signs
of decay.

The ostrich farm was a more enlivening scene. One thousand of these
ugly, vicious birds were kept in an enclosure, the fence surrounding
them being so high we were obliged to seek an elevation from which we
could look down upon them. They are most ungainly, but their strut is
indicative of vanity. To probe them, as some did through an opening in
the gateway, was to arouse their wrath, and the warning was soon given
to desist, by the care-keepers. Many of the eggs were emptied of their
contents and for sale. Throughout the land morgues are crumbling to
ruins, the Arab seemingly powerless to repair them, or to build new
ones. Cairo is built from the ruins of Heliop