poverty is aggravated by one disease, which is almost universal. The bright sun, glaring on the white sands, produces an inflammation of the eyes, which being neglected, often ends in blindness. I have seen more men in Egypt with one eye, or with none, than in all Europe.

It might be supposed that a people, thus reduced by poverty and smitten by disease, would be crushed out of all semblance of humanity. And yet this Arab race is one which has a strong tenacity of life. Most travellers judge them harshly, because they are disgusted by the unceasing cry for backsheesh, which is the first word that a stranger hears as he lands in Egypt, and the last as he leaves it. But even this (although it is certainly a nuisance and a pest) might be regarded with more merciful judgment, if it were considered that it is only the outward sign of an internal disease; that general beggary means general poverty and general misery.

Leaving this noisy crowd, which gathers about us in every village that we enter, it is easy to find different specimens of Arab character, which engage our interest and compel our respect. One cannot look at these men without admiring their physique. They remind me much of our American Indians. Like them, they are indolent, unless goaded to work by necessity, and find nothing so pleasant as to sit idly in the sun. But when they stand up they have an attitude as erect as any Indian chief, and a natural dignity, which is the badge of their race. Many a man who has but a single garment to cover him, will wrap it about him as proudly as any Spanish cavalier would toss his cloak over his shoulders, and stalk away with a bold, free stride, as if, in spite of centuries of humiliation, he were still the untamed lord of the desert. Their old men are most venerable in appearance. With their long beards, white turbans, and flowing garments, they might stand for the picture of Old Testament patriarchs. The women too (who do not cover their faces as much as those in lower Egypt), though coarsely and meanly dressed, yet as they walk with their water-jars on their heads, stand more erect than the fashionable ladies of our cities. I see them every day coming to fill their "pitchers" precisely as Rebecca and Rachel came three thousand years ago, and if I should approach one, saying, Give me to drink, (which I might well do, for the water of the Nile—though containing so much sediment, that it needs to be filtered—is as soft and sweet as that of our own Croton), she would let down her jar from her head just as Rebecca let down her jar for the servant of Abraham, when he came to ask her in marriage for his master's son Isaac.

The children too, though often naked, and if clothed at all, always in rags, yet have fine olive complexions, and dazzling teeth, and those bright eyes which are the sign of a degree of native intelligence.

Nor can I refuse to say a word for the poor donkey-boy. Many years ago a Scotchman in the Cape Colony, South Africa, who was accustomed to make long journeys in the bush, wrote a little poem, depicting the joys of that solitary life, which began,