There is no carousing there, no Kushuk Arnem and Ghawazee dancing, but pains as of corded hermits and starving ascetics. Yet the hermit has dreams that the king envies. We come thousands of miles to see strange lands, wonderful cities, and haunts of fame. But in a week's illness in the blue cabin or elsewhere, cities of more shining towers and ponderous palace-ranges, lands of more wondrous growth and races than ever Cook or Columbus discovered, or the wildest dreamer dreamed, dawn and die along the brain. To those golden gates and shores sublime no palmy Nile conducts-not even the Euphrates or Tigris, nor any thousands of miles, would bring the traveler to that sight. Sick Sinbad, traveling only from one side of his bed to the other, could have told tales stranger and more fascinating than enchanted his gaping guests.

Ah! could we tame the fantastic genius that only visits us with fever for the entertainment of our health, we could well spare the descriptive poets, nor read Vathek and Hafiz any more. But he is untamable, until his brother of sleep, that good genius who gives us dreams, will consent to serve our waking-until stars shine at noonday--until palms wave along the Hudson shores.

XXX.

Southward.

THE Nubians devote themselves to nudity and to smearing their hair with castor oil.

At least it seems so from the river. Nor have they much chance to do any thing else, for Nubia only exists by the grace of the desert or the persistence of the Nile in well-doing. It is a narrow strip of green between the mountains on both sides, and the river. Often it is only the mere slope of the bank which is green. You ascend through that, pushing aside the flowering lupin and beans, and stand at the top of the bank in the desert. Often the desert stretches to the stream, and defies it, shoring it with sheer sand. A few taxed palms, a few taxed Sakias, the ever neat little houses, the comely black race, and, walling all, the inexorable mountains, rocky, jagged, of volcanic outline and appearance-these are the few figures of the Nubian panorama.

Dates, baskets, mats, the gum and charcoal of the mimosa, a little senna, and farther south ebony, sandalwood, rice, sugar, and slaves, are all the articles of commerce-lupins, beans, and dhourra, a kind of grain, the crops of consumption.

It is a lonely, solitary land. There are no flights of birds, as in Egypt; no wide valley reaches, greened with golden plenty. Scarce a sail whitens the yellow-blue of the river. A few solitary camels and donkeys pass, spectral, upon the shore. It seems stiller than Egypt, where the extent of the crops, the frequent villages and constant population, relieve the sense of death. In Nubia, it is the silence of intense suspense. The unyielding mountains range along so near the river, that the Howadji fears the final triumph of the desert.

Like a line of fortresses stretched against the foe, stand the Sakias, the allies of the river. But their ceaseless sigh, as in Egypt, only saddens the silence. Through the great gate of the cataract, you enter a new world, south of the Poet's "farthest south." A sad, solitary, sunny world-but bravery and the manly virtues are always the dower of poor races, who must roughly rough it to exist.

In appearance and character the Nubians are the superiors of the Egyptians. But they are subject to them by the inscrutable law that submits the darker races to the whiter, the world over. The sweetness and placidity and fidelity, the love of country and family, the simplicity of character and conduct which distinguish them, are not the imperial powers of a people. Like the Savoyards into Europe, the Nubians go down into Egypt and fill inferior offices of trust. They are the most valued of servants, but never lose their home-longing and return into the strange, sultry silence of Nubia, when they have been successful in Egypt.

Yet the antique Ethiopian valor survives. Divers districts are still warlike, and the most savage struggles are not unknown. The Ethiopians once resisted the Romans, and the fame of one-eyed Queen Candace, whose wisdom and valor gave the name to her successors, yet flourishes in the land, and the remains of grand temples attest that the great Ramses and the proud Ptolemies thought it worth while to own it. The Nubians bear arms, but all of the rudest kind-crooked knives, iron-shod clubs, and slings and a shield of hippopotamus hide-and in the battles the women mingle and assist.

Yet in the five hundred miles from Syene to Dongola, not more than one hundred thousand inhabitants are estimated. They reckon seven hundred Sakias for that distance, and that each is equal to one thousand five hundred bushels of grain.

These shores are the very confines of civilization. The hum of the world has died away into stillness. The sun shines brightly in Nubia. The sky is blue, but the sadness of the land rests like a shadow upon the Howadji. It is like civilization dying decently. The few huts and the few people smile and look contented. They come down to the shore, as the Ibis skims along, wonderingly and trustfully as the soft-souled Southern savages beheld with curiosity Columbus' fleet. They are naked and carry clubs, and beg powder and arms, but sit quietly by your side as you sketch or sit upon the shore, or run like hunting-dogs for the pigeons you have shot. If there be any impossible shot, the Howadji is called upon with perfect confidence

to execute it for a clothed Howadji with a gun is a denizen of a loftier sphere to the nude Nubians. Why does the sun so spoil its children and fondle their souls away? How neat are their homes, like houses set in order! For the mighty desert frowns behind, and the crushing government frowns below. Yet the placid Nubian looks from his taxed Sakia to his taxed palms, sees the sand and the taxgatherer stealing upon his substance, and quietly smiles, as if his land were a lush-vineyarded Rhine-bank.

The Howadji had left the little, feline Reis at Syene, his home, for the indolent Nubian blood was mingled in his veins, and made him seem always this quiet land personified. The Ibis flew, piloted by a native Nubian, who knew the river through his country. For here the shores are stony, and there are two difficult passages, which the natives call half-cataracts.

Hassan was a bright-eyed, quiet personage, who discharged his functions very humbly, sitting with the Ancient Mariner at the helm, who seemed, grisly Egyptian, half jealous of his Nubian colleague, and contemptuously remarked, when we reached Philæ, returning, that no man need go twice to know the river. The men were uneasy at the absence of their head, nor liked to be directed by the Nubian, or the Ancient Mariner; but Hassan sang with them such scraps of Arabic song as he knew, and regaled them with pure Nubian melodies, which are sweeter than those of Egypt, for the Nubians are much more musical than their neighbors, and in a crew, they are the best and most exhilarating singers. He sat patiently on the