44 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

ered with a heavy velvet pall, and under the marble arches before it, a company of priests, squatted on the green carpet covering the floor, bow their heads continually and recite prayers or fragments of the Koran.

Before descending into the city, I rode a little way into the Desert to the tombs of the Caliphs, on the road to Suez.

They consist mostly of stone canopies raised on pillars, with mosques or oratories attached to them, exhibiting considerable variety in their design, but are more curious than impressive.

The track in the sand made by the pilgrims to Mecca and the overland passengers to Suez, had far more real interest in my eyes. The pilgrims are fewer, and the passengers more numerous, with each successive year. English-built omuibuses, whirled along by galloping post-horses, scatter the sand, and in the midst of the herbless Desert, the travellers regale themselves with beefsteak and ale, and growl if the accustomed Cheshire is foiiad wanting. At this rate, how long will it be before there is a telegraph-station in Mecca, and the operator explodes with his wire a cannon on the Citadel of Cairo, to announce that the prayers on Mount Arafat have commenced ?

The Island of Rhoda, which I visited on a soft, golden afternoon, is but a reminiscence of what it was a few years ago. Since Ibrahim Pasha's death it has been wholly neglected, and though we found a few gardeners at work, digging up the sodden flower-beds and clipping the rank myrtle hedges, they only served to make the neglect more palpable. During the recent inundation, the Nile had risen to within a few inches of covering the whole island, and the soil was still soft and clammy. Nearly all the growths of the tropics are nurtured here ; the coffee, the Indian fig, the mango, and other