es very friendly, and gave us some
coffee, which a handsome boy handed round. After staying some little
time with them we returned to our tents, where we found a good dinner
ready for us.

At a very late hour, the kitchen-boy whom we had left on the road came
into camp, accompanied by two Persian knife-grinders, with a young
Dervish from Eastern Asia. The Dervish wore long hair, and was dressed
in a garment entirely made up of patches of cloth of various colours.
These people had travelled with our caravan for two days, each carrying
the heavy grindstone in turns. It had often much amused us to watch the
care of the young Dervish, despite his fatigue, not to part with his
alms bag, attached to the end of a long staff, when taking the stone
upon his strong shoulders.

V.

FROM BIR EL MAGARA TO EL HARISH.

At a quarter past seven the next morning, we took our departure from Bir
el Magara and ascended the gently-rising ground by which it is enclosed.
Leaving to our left a large Melleha, called El Berdovil, which at high
tides is filled with sea water, we followed a smaller one to our right,
and came into a sandy, undulating, shrubby, and generally uniform tract
of ground, which, after many hours' ride, brought us to a valley or
Melleha-bottom, called Garif el Jemel--"Garif of the camel," lying
between ridges of steep hills. Here we found the whole landscape in all
the beauty of the early year, with the Bedouins' herds grazing upon the
fresh green grass, which was covered with primroses and other spring
flowers. On ascending the ridge to the right we enjoyed a most extensive
view. To the left lay the Melleha, the broad sea Bahr el Kebir, as the
Bedouins call it, the invigorating breezes of which reached us, and the
uniform plain, with the mountains of El Magara and El Halal. We lunched
on the ridge, feasting our eyes once more upon the distant sea, which we
had not seen for so long. A Bedouin came and sat by us without speaking
a word. We gave him a piece of bread, which, I suppose, satisfied him,
as he then left us and went down the hill.

It was soon time for us, too, to descend into the valley and resume our
course. Still following the telegraph posts through a uniformly
undulating plain, overgrown with shrubs, we reached a long Melleha
enclosed by low hills, beyond which are the so-called "steps" of Adam
Abou Zeit, the hero of Arabian legend, which are kept marked in the
moving sand by passing Bedouins. A