ling and populous
city in the world. The narrow streets, abounding with bazaars, present
the appearance of a mob, through which troops of richly dressed
cavaliers force with difficulty their prancing way, arrested often in
their course by the procession of a harem returning from the bath, the
women enveloped in inscrutable black garments, and veils and masks of
white linen, and borne along by the prettiest donkeys in the world. The
attendant eunuchs beat back the multitude; even the swaggering horsemen,
with their golden and scarlet jackets, rich shawls and scarfs, and
shining arms, trampling on those around, succeed in drawing aside; but
all efforts are vain, for at the turning of the street appears the first
still solemn visage of a long string of tall camels bearing provisions
to the citadel, a Nubian astride on the neck of the leader, and beating
a wild drum, to apprise the people of his approach. The streets, too,
in which these scenes occur are in themselves full of variety and
architectural beauty. The houses are lofty and latticed, abounding in
balconies; fountains are frequent and vast and as richly adorned
as Gothic shrines; sometimes the fortified palace of one of the old
Mamlouks, now inhabited by a pasha, still oftener the exquisite shape of
an Arabian mosque. The temples of Stamboul cannot vie with the fanes
of Cairo. Their delicate domes and airy cupolas, their lofty minarets
covered with tracery, and the flowing fancy of their arabesques recalled
to me the glories of the Alhambra, the fantastic grace of the Alcazars
and the shrines of Seville and Cordova.

At night the illuminated coffee-houses, the streaming population, each
person carrying a lantern, in an atmosphere warmer and softer than our
conservatories, and all the innocent amusements of an out-door life--the
Nubian song, the Arabian tale, the Syrian magic--afford a different, but
not less delightful scene.

It was many hours before noon, however, that I made my first visit to
Shoubra, beneath a sky as cloudless as it remained during the whole six
months I was in Egypt, during which time I have no recollection that we
were favoured by a single drop of rain; and yet the ever-living breeze
on the great river, and the excellent irrigation of the earth, produce
a freshness in the sky and soil, which are missed in other Levantine
regions, where there is more variety of the seasons.

Shoubra is about four or five miles from the metropolis. It rises o