has persuaded the Pacha to allow her to take the child to England on a visit.  The mother, who has picked up a little English from the nurse, said to Mrs. Green, ‘I am very unhappy; young Pacha’ (her boy) ’is going away.’  The mother is no more thought of in this arrangement than I am.  What a strange system it is!...  We passed through the wonderful Delta to-day, and certainly the people looked more comfortable than those of Alexandria.  The beasts too, camels, oxen, donkeys, showed signs of the fertility of the soil in their sleekness.  What might not be made of this country if it were wisely guided!

[Sidenote:  Crossing the Desert.]

Steamer ’Bentinck.’—­Sunday, May 10th.—­I write to you from the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai, which we passed at an early hour this morning, gliding through a sea of most transparent glass, with so little motion that there is hardly an excuse for bad writing....  I must, however, take you back to Cairo.  We began to move at a very early hour, about three, on Saturday (yesterday) morning.  We were actually in the railway carriages at half-past four.  I was placed in a coupe before the engine, in order that I might see the road; and in this somewhat formidable position ran over about forty miles of the Desert in about an hour and a half.  It is a wonderful sight this strange barren expanse of stone and gravel, with here and there a small encampment of railway labourers, after passing through the luxuriant Valley of the Nile, teeming with production and life, animal and vegetable.  In the morning air there was a healthy freshness, which was very delightful.  At the end of our hour and a half we reached the termination of the part of the railway which is already completed, and embarked in two-wheeled four-horse vans (such as you see in the Illustrated News), to pass over about five miles of trackless desert, lying between the said terminus and a station on the regular road across the Desert, at which we were to breakfast.  This part of our journey was rough work, and took us some time to execute.  Our station was really a very nice building; and while we were there a caravan of pilgrims to Mecca, some women in front and the men following, all mounted on their patient camels, passed by.  After we were refreshed we started for Suez; and you will hardly believe me when I tell you, that we travelled forty-seven miles over the Desert in a carriage as capacious and commodious as a London town coach, in four hours and a half, including seven changes of horses and a stoppage of half an hour.  In short, we got over the ground in about three hours and three-fourths.  We had six horses to our carriage, and a swarthy Nubian, with a capital seat on horseback, rode by us all the way, occasionally reminding our horses that it was intended they should go at a gallop.

[Sidenote:  Retrospect of Egypt.] [Sidenote:  Egyptian ladies.]