and last of their country to the Arabs-is of considerable extent. The houses are all flat-roofed, and being chiefly white, look peculiarly glaring under the burning sun of Egypt. The principal European square is a very gay place; and there the traveller may take a last look at the mantillas, polkas, silks, crapes, large-pattern trowsers, and black hats, which adorn the English and French visitors and merchants, as they walk up and down on the shaded side, parading themselves in the latest imported fashions. Each Consul has his national flag flying from a high flagstaff, surrounded by a circular staircase, from the top of which he can command a view of the flat-roofed houses; the harbour sparkling with the flags of all nations, and the beautiful blue sea beyond. English people, averse as they are to public scrutiny, would, if exposed to it, consider these points of view extremely disagreeable, they afford

the means of discovering all that is going on in neighbouring houses which they overlook.

In our way round the town we were obliged to resort once more to the donkeys, and, to say the truth, they made no bad. steeds. They are a different race from those of England. The Egyptian donkey is always pulling away at his bit, and is anxious to be off as fast as possible. He never lies down, goes well, and scarcely ever seems spent. Instead of a saddle, his equipment is a cushion of carpets, strapped over his sleek and well-kept hide affording a comfortable seat.

The first of the Alexandrian antiquities that we visited was Pompey's Pillar, which, though it bears the name of the renowned General, was raised by Diocletian. We could not but approach it with feelings of veneration, as a tribute paid in a remote age to genuine heroism, and majestic mis

fortune; but were disappointed to find that it was simply a column of red granite, of great height, placed on the top of a hill. We here, for the first time, noticed the disgraceful practice which has grown up among travellers in the East, of defacing the temples and other monuments of antiquity, by printing, smoking and carving their names on stones which, apart from historical associations, Time has rendered venerable. Pompey's pillar has not escaped this irruption of the Huns and Vandals; it is emblazoned in letters, two or three feet in length, with the names of its barbarian invaders. I am sorry to add, that they are British, as were most of those which we met with subsequently. After expressing our disgust at the bad taste of such people, and their effrontery in so parading it, we left the spot, wondering how so noble a monument could have been subjected to such an outrage.

The hill on which this pillar stands, overlooks the burial-ground of Alexandria, which, like all cemeteries in the East, is outside the town. We learnt, on inquiry, that it is the custom to inter only one body in every grave; and we were much struck with the curious appearance the cemetery presented, each grave being marked by a little dome of plaster, instead of a tombstone; being thus covered over as a protection from the attacks of the numerous dogs that here prowl about at night. They are also often surmounted by an aloe, the emblem of Eternity.

We rode homeward by Cleopatra's Needles, two fine obelisks of red granite; one of them now lies prostrate, but the other, seventy feet in height, may yet stand for ages. The fallen column is the property of the English government, to whom it was presented by the by the Pasha ; Pasha; but a

disgraceful parsimony has hitherto prevented its removal.* Though erected in honour of Ramesis III., an early King of Egypt, it is the name of the wondrous Queen, that serpent of old Nile, that lends interest to the spot, and we lingered to recal her strange, eventful history, not without a feeling of sadness at the change which, since that epoch, has come over her once mighty realm.

of

The streets of Alexandria are made of mud, battened down, which renders them

* Since the above remarks were written, public attention has been called to this neglected relic of antiquity through the all-powerful medium of The Times. In such hands the question may be very safely left; but surely the nation that can throw away untold sums on a fabric like the Marble Arch, can spare £2,000 for the preservation of this fine column, which, transplanted to English soil, might commemorate the deeds of an Abercrombie or a Nelson.