After breakfast, and just as we were about to start upon our day’s journey, we saw what must certainly be called a strange sight—­a wheeled carriage approaching our small encampment.  It came along like the wind, and proved to be a phaeton, double-bodied, that is, with a driving-seat in front, with a European charioteer guiding a pair of horses as the wheelers, while the leaders were camels, with an Arab riding postillion.  An English and a Parsee gentleman were inside, and the carriage was scarcely in sight, before it had stopped in the midst of us.  The party had only been a few hours coming across.  We hastily exchanged intelligence; were told that the Berenice had lost all its speed, being reduced, in consequence of alterations made in the dock-yard in Bombay, from twelve knots an hour to eight, and that the engines had never worked well during the voyage up.

During this day’s journey, we met several parties, passengers of the steamer, coming from Suez.  One lady passed us in a donkey-chair, with her daughter riding a donkey by the side; another group, consisting of two ladies and several gentlemen, were all mounted upon camels, and having large umbrellas over their heads, made an exceedingly odd appearance, the peculiar gait of the camel causing them to rise and fall in a very singular manner.  At a distance, their round moving summits looked like the umbrageous tops of trees, and we might fancy as they approached, the lower portion being hidden by ridges of sand, that “Birnam Wood was coming to Dunsinane.”

The monotony usually complained of in desert travelling cannot be very strongly felt between Cairo and Suez, for though there is little else but sand to be seen, yet it is so much broken and undulated, that there is always some diversity of objects.  The sand-hills now gave place to rock, and it appeared as if many ranges of hills stretched out both to the right and left of the plains we traversed; their crags and peaks, piled one upon the other, and showing various colours, rich browns and purples, as they stood in shade or sunshine.  Greenish tints assured us that vegetation was not quite so seamy upon these hills as in the desert they skirted, which only showed at intervals a few coarse plants, scarcely deserving the name.  It has been said, that there is only one tree between Cairo and Suez; but we certainly saw several, though none of any size; that which is called, par excellence, “the tree,” affording a very poor idea of timber.

We made a short rest, in the middle of the day, at a travellers’ bungalow; and just as we were leaving it, one of Mr. Hill’s caravans arrived—­a tilted cart upon springs, and drawn by a pair of horses; it contained a family, passengers by the Berenice, consisting of a gentleman and his wife, two children and a servant.  We conversed with them for a few minutes, and learned that they had not found the road very rough, and that where it was heavy they added a camel as a leader.