A SLIGHT EXPERIENCE OF HASHEESH. 519 gradually fading away, I found myself infected with a tendency to view the most common objects in a ridiculous light. Achmet was sitting on one of the provision chests, as was his custom of an evening. I thought : was there ever any thing so absurd as to see him sitting on that chest ? and laughed immoderately at the idea. The turban worn by the captain next put on such a quizzical appearance that I chuckled over it for some time. Of all turbans in the world it was the most ludicrous. Various other things affected me in like manner, and at last it seemed to me that my eyes were increasing in breadth. " Achmet," I called out, " how is this ? my eyes are precisely like two onions." This was my crowning piece of absurdity. I laughed so loud and long at the singular comparison I had made, that when I ceased from sheer weariness the effect was over. But on the following morning my eyes were much better, and I was able to write, for the first time in a week.

The calm we had prayed for was given to us. The Lotus floated, sailed and was rowed down the Nile at the rate of seventy miles a day, all hands singing in chorus day and night, while the rai's and his nephew Hossayn beat the tarabooka or played the reedy zumarra. It was a triumphal march ; for my six men outrowed the ten men of the Englishman. Sometimes the latter came running behind us till they were within hail, whereupon my men would stand up in their places, and thundering out their contemptuous chorus of " he toon, torn, hoosoarra ! " strike the water so furiously with their long oars, that their rivals soon slunk out of hearing. So we went down, all excitement, passing in one day a space, which it had taken us four days to make, on our ascent. One day at Man-