The landing-places were always the scenes of my chief troubles.  It was seldom that I could find a Frank, and was generally obliged to address several of the bystanders before I succeeded in finding one who could speak Italian and give me the information I required.  I requested to be taken at once to the Austrian consulate, where this difficulty was usually removed.  This was also the case here.  The consul immediately sent to inquire how I could best get to Cairo, and offered me a room in his house in the mean time.  A ship was soon found, for Atfe is a harbour of some importance.  The canal joins the Nile at this place; and as larger vessels are used on the stream itself, all goods are transhipped here, so that barques are continually starting for Alexandria and Cairo.  In a few hours I was obliged to re-embark, and had only time to provide myself with provisions and a supply of water, and to partake of a sumptuous dinner at the consul’s, whose hospitality was doubly grateful to me as I had fasted the previous day.  The chief compartment of the cabin had been engaged for me, at an expense of 100 piastres.  On embarking, however, I found that this place had been so filled with goods, that hardly a vacant space remained for the poor occupant.  I at once hastened back to the consulate and complained of the captain, whereupon the consul sent for that worthy and desired him to clear my cabin, and to refrain from annoying me during the voyage, if he wished to be paid on our arrival at Cairo.  This command was strictly obeyed, and until we reached our destination I was left in undisturbed possession of my berth.  At two in the afternoon I once more set sail alone in the company of Arabs and Bedouins.

I would counsel any one who can only make this journey to Cairo once in his lifetime to do it at the end of August or the beginning of September.  A more lovely picture, and one more peculiar in its character, can scarcely be imagined.  In many places the plain is covered as far as the eye can trace by the Nile-sea (it can scarcely be called river in its immense expanse), and every where little islands are seen rising from the waters, covered with villages surrounded by date-palms, and other trees, while in the background the high-masted boats, with their pyramidal sails, are gliding to and fro.  Numbers of sheep, goats, and poultry cover the hills, and near the shore the heads of the dark-grey buffaloes, which are here found in large herds, peer forth from the water.  These creatures are fond of immersing their bodies in the cool flood, where they stand gazing at the passing ships.  Here and there little plantations of twenty to thirty trees are seen, which appear, as the ground is completely overflowed, to be growing out of the Nile.  The water here is much more muddy and of a darker colour than in the canal between Atfe and Alexandria.  The sailors pour this water into great iron vessels, and leave it to settle and become