ALEXANDRIA. 15

acenic, in the windows and doorways, especially in new build-

ings. A small obelisk of alabaster, a present from Mohammed

Ali, stands in the centre, on a pedestal which was meant for a

fountain, but has no water. All this I noted, as well as a

crowd of donkeys and donkey-boys, and a string of laden camels, on our way to the hotel, which we found to be a long

and not particularly clean edifice, on the northern side of the

square. The English and French steamers had just arrived,

and no rooms were to be had until after the departure of the

afternoon boat for Cairo. Our dragoman, who called himself

Ibrahim, suggested a bath as the most agreeable means of

passing the intermediate time.

The clear sky, the temperature (like that of a mild July

day at home), and the novel interest of the groups in the

streets, were sufficient to compensate for any annoyance : but when we reached the square of the French Church, and saw a

garden of palm-trees waving their coronals of glittering leaves, every thing else was forgotten. My German friend, who had

never seen palms, except as starveling exotics in Sorrento and

Smyrna, lifted his hands in rapture, and even I, who had

heard tens of thousands rustle in the hot winds of the Tropics,

felt my heart leap as if their beauty were equally new to my

eyes. For no amount of experience can deprive the traveller

of that happy feeling of novelty which marks his- first day on the soil of a new continent. I gave myself up wholly to its

inebriation. Et ego in Africa, was the sum of my thoughts,

and I neither saw nor cared to know the fact (which we dis-

cover ed in due time), that our friend Ibrahim was an arrant knave.

The bath to which he conducted us was pronounced to be