when the next lady came to collect for the music, I gave her the bouquet as a present to the whole company.  It was worth more than an introduction to the entire party, and for the balance of my stay I was always well entertained, and was kindly informed of anything that I asked in regard to the manners and customs of oriental life.  The people of every nation under the sun, travel in Egypt in the habits of their own peculiar national costumes—­the Turk with his turban, the Greek with his red cap, and the Arabians, East Indians, Russians, and all the nations of Western Europe are represented here, all wearing their own peculiar styles and fashions.  The money too is a mixture of the coins of a dozen different countries.  None except the poorest women will come out of their houses without having their faces covered with thick black veils.

On the “Home-Stretch.”

I do not know where I was the happiest, when I reached the coasts of Italy and saw dear Europe again, when I reached Paris, or when I landed at New York and was finally again ushered into the sweet scenes of home!  But I remember well that I left no city with so much regret as Paris.  How I watched to see the last glimmering rays of its ten thousand gas-jets, as our train moved away at the silent midnight hour of October 22nd.

I had stopped at Milan to see the grand peagent of Emperor William of Germany, and King Victor Emanuel of Italy, with a retinue of some 22,000 militia, with which they held a military drill, and saw the illumination of the Cathedral on that memorable occasion; besides I had stopped a day at Rome, and two at Paris; yet I made my return trip from Alexandria to New York in 25 days, sleeping but 7 nights in comfortable beds in all that time.  Sleeping in the cars and on the ships, never amounted to much.  I made this haste on account of the now rapidly approaching winter.

Conclusion.

Notwithstanding the influence which the church and the political powers of Rome, in earlier times, and which Paris and the spirit of progress in later years, have exerted to the contrary, the manners, customs and institutions of the people are still so different that the people of the Western Continent can not form correct ideas of European life without having first visited portions of it.  For want of a standard of comparison, the reader is often utterly deceived by fine poetical descriptions, because he can not properly construe the language.

A tour of ordinary length and duration can now be made through the western nations of Europe, with less expense than is generally believed, as may be inferred from the fact that my entire tour of nearly fourteen thousand miles, cost less than seven hundred dollars.  Many travelers lose forty percent of their money by imposition, and others are more careless and extravagant than they ought.  If I could not have spoken German, it would have cost me several hundred dollars more.  Could I have spoken French, it might have cost me