Silsilis-Assouan-English officers and Egyptian troops-Juvenal at Syene-An unkind prophecy-Will the Egyptian fight?-Assouan railway station-An unwelcome telegram-Elephantine-Phila-Southward to the Cataract-The Reis rebels-Value of a Pasha's life-Rock ahead-The Reis in commandAgonising moments-Safety and baksheesh.

THE onwards met minns here on either side green to have

HE Cleopatra sped onwards next morning, and passed through the narrow

been willing to combine in an effort to close the magnificent stream, which disdains their efforts and rushes noisily by. Here is a monument, one of the few of Horus, last king of the eighteenth dynasty, with a picture of Horus nourished by the goddess, and then too the well-known picture, the triumph of Horus-the king borne by twelve officers of his army, two other officers bearing the flabellum over his head, returning after his triumphant expedition against the Kouch, &c., led as trembling captives behind him.

On sped the Cleopatra; passed Ombos with its Ptolemaic temple, destined to become the prey of the river, rushing from the Cataracts, now so near; for soon appears Assouan itself, a fertile oasis in a desert, with the island of Elephantine beyond, "a mosaic of vivid green, golden sand, and black syenite." The view of Assouan is singularly effective as one approaches from the north; the town lies below, bending down to the river from a rich slope of green, and beyond and all around the bleak desert, and overtopping all the desert crags, surmounted by the town of Syene. Those who have passed through the fertile valley of the

Nile, who have seen the desert with its fearful waste hungrily bordering on the verdure and standing thirsting before them, can realise the terror of the prophecy, "I am against thee, and against thy rivers; and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia" (Ezek. xxix. 10).

There are Egyptian troops still here, and the English Colonel comes down to welcome the glad sight of Anglo-Saxon faces. Truly the British officer is a wonderful man, and a martyr to his uniform. The heat of an Assouan sun cannot make him dispense with the regulation tight-fitting jacket, and the gallant officer comes on board as if dressed for parade. Alone with one other compatriot English officer, he takes his daily meals off tinned meats, bully-beef, and dry bread, in a miserable hut, with the same stately solemnity as if at his own regimental mess-table. Every night the glass of vin ordinaire is solemnly raised, and the health of the Queen drank in silence, followed by that of the Khedive. But let it not be thought that only in this observance of form does Colonel maintain his English habits in the far desert. His men, Egyptians though they be, are as smart as if liable at any moment to be called out for inspection; and at any and every moment they are liable to be called to man the forts, and to prepare to receive an imaginary enemy. For the benefit of the party the alarm-gun is sounded, and in a moment every man is at his place, every gun loaded and run out, waiting the command to fire. But from the bleak hills away to the south there is nothing but silent desert, the Nile rushing beneath, and a sight of the lovely island of Philo. Riding round the fortifications, the gallant Colonel, whose face is so well known in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly and Pall Mall, has yet an eye for every weak point, every defect in detail, and a kind word of approval for the young subalterns, who have none of that sullen, discontented appearance which was so striking in the days when they were under Egyptian or Turkish officers. Not a word of regret has the Colonel for the time which some men might think he is wasting here. Perhaps, it is true, he has a shrewd idea that his service in Egypt may help him with the constituency whose votes he hopes to win at the next general election; but none the less is his heart and soul in his work. Juvenal, he thinks, made much too much fuss about his exile to Syene; his liver must have been out of order when he indited, those terrible Satires. Assouan is charming; he finds the Egyptian climate and Egyptian troops equally perfect. One grievance only has the gallant Colonel, and that is against the well-meaning old ladies who write to remind him that "they also that uphold Egypt shall fall; from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword." That quotation, as the tower of Syene

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is his messroom, he thinks in bad taste; but he lets out an extra length to his waistbelt, pats himself comfortably thereon, and says cheerfully, "But I never felt less like falling in my life."

"But will your men fight, Colonel, as well as they look ?" asked the Nabob. "That's the question that every one asks, and every one answers differently," replied the Colonel, "forgetting that 'fight' is a relative term. They'll certainly not bolt, as they did at Tel-el-Kebir; nor will they perhaps ever carry entrenchments as we carry them. But remember that the Egyptian soldier is a perfectly new experiment; you can't expect a people who have been treated as curs for several thousand years to suddenly develop the qualities of lions. You can't expect men dragged unwillingly from their homes, ill-fed, ill-clothed, and unpaid, to develop any of the esprit de corps which is the first quality of a soldier. treat them well, pay them regularly, and above all, feed them well, and I am much mistaken if in time you don't make good soldiers of them, so long as you have good officers to lead them. Without that, your Indians are useless, and so will these men be."

But

But in five years or so the army is going to be handed over to the Turks," said the Sketcher.

"Then in six years or so," said the Colonel, "the army will certainly be worthless, and probably a danger. Whether you might have made a native army with Turkish officers five years ago, is a question; but, without suppressing another rebellion, you certainly will not do it now. However, here we are at the station,

and there's your train."

The station was indicated by a pile of luggage and merchandise, on which was lying the Pasha, surrounded by a crowd perhaps the most varied and picturesque that could be gathered even in Egypt. The Fellah, the Barabras, and the Nubian, to which one has become accustomed in the journey up the river, here mix with tribes from the interior and from the far Soudan; Bishareens who have come from Berber, Ababdchis, and even a few Hadendowa, mingled with Abyssinians, Turks, and Greeks; and here and there the Nabob found a few Indians, to whom he graciously condescended to speak in an apparently unknown tongue.

Loaded camels were seated lazily munching from their burdens of fodder with grumbling content; a few packets of gum, ostrich feathers, and ivory lay on the ground; anxious traders squatted around, eagerly scanning the countenance of the Pasha, and trying to gather from it some faint hope that commerce would re-open and the river be available for traffic; in little groups some new-comer from the south was relating his unhappy experiences to eager listeners; and the