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sponge, which, being light and elastic, hopped off, miles beyond recovery, and by the next morning might have arrived in the Mahdi's country. The next visitation was in the daytime, when we were on the march. I saw it coming in the distance, a wall of sand-cloud, sweeping toward us, though the atmosphere, where we were, was still. I stopped the caravan and began pitching camp immediately. But before the operation was complete we were struck by a storm of sand through which we could not see twenty yards. After half an hour of this a person feels like a fried sole covered with bread crumbs. We dare not open our luggage, lest it should get filled with sand, and the wonder was how Moojan succeeded in cooking a tolerable dinner.

The Kittar camp was very beautiful. Our tents were pitched near the junction of two ravines. The southerly one led by steep and darksome ways to Floyer's waterfall-so called after the enterprising traveller now at the head of the Telegraph Department in Egypt, who discovered it. This was a sheer wall, 80 feet high, covered with maidenhair fern. The side walls of the ravine were far higher, and one was led to speculate how long the torrent, which may on an average run during a few hours only in each year, has taken to cut back through a mile of solid granite to this waterfall. Above and below it were several lovely palm-fringed pools, and near some of them were little stone huts where ibex-hunters are wont to lie in wait for the animals who come to drink. On an upright face of rock near the camp, I found several grotesque representations of ibex, loaded camels, etc. I believe there are many similarly decorated rocks on the Sinaitic side of the Gulf.

Here we were more hopeful of success, as, in the ravines, we found plants nibbled by the goats, and actually saw two of the animals, but they did not give a fair chance. An Arab produced from among the rocks the horns of a fine Taytal which he had shot not long before. But that only showed that this district also had been recently harried with dogs. Notwithstanding this, we worked away from morning to night, spying each rugged corrie with

extreme care, and afterward purposely giving it the wind, or showing ourselves conspicuously. It was not easy ground to cover satisfactorily with the glass, owing to the number of hollows and embrasures, scooped by sand or water; but if anything had moved, we must have heard if not seen it in the prevailing silence. Despairing at last of these vain quests, I again abandoned the hunting for a climb, determined to get my first view of the sea. It was hot work, but I was well repaid. My only fear was that other peaks would overtop the one I had selected, but as I neared the summit there was nothing but two toppling crags between me and the horizon. A few steps further, and I saw, between them, the thin line of bluest blue of the Red Sea, and all the range of Sinai beyond, a view which suggested many thoughts.

Along and across this famous waterway the civilization of Egypt drew its earliest inspiration from the East. It landed at the little coral-locked harbor of Myos Hermos, which lay there almost in the foreground, though it was 5000 feet below me, and twenty miles away. Thence it crossed the thirsty belt, here at its narrowest, and in the fat Nile pastures it throve amazingly, till some of its drift wood, floating down the benign river, stranded on barbarous shores, and struck and spread again. The plain lay pale in the quivering heat, and from it sprang, on either side of the Gulf, gaunt peaks like the sunbleached ribs of some derelict monster, half buried in the desert sand. Of what old-world histories had they not been witnesses, of which Moses and his unruly horde is the tale of yesterday!

Our next move was to Badia, an important well of the Romans at the base of Gebel Dukhan, the range in which their famous porphyry quarries, which it was our object to visit, were situated. Here the ground was strewn with fragments of amphora and of the blue pottery which the Romans used; also with the remains of shellfish, the only fresh food which these poor exiles could obtain nearer than the Nile. Among the débris of what appeared to be a sort of garden, I picked up a pretty little bunch of crystals which it pleased

me to think some Roman centurion had treasured for his child.

Gebel Dukhan is a mountain shaped like a horseshoe, on the ridges of which are the porphyry quarries, and in the valley which they enclose is the little Roman town and temple which sheltered the quarrymen. The stone was brought down this valley by a road which made. a wide détour of the mountain, and then across the desert to the Nile by the route we had followed-a course of 100 miles. The transit of the blocks was doubtless accomplished on wooden rollers. We did not care to follow the circuitous route, but, travelling with light equipment, crossed the ridge itself-a climb of 2000 feet-by an old Roman path which made a short cut from Badia. For a long distance it was carried across a fan-shaped talus of loose stones and rock, many miles in extent, washed down from a ravine. The path in this part had been made by simply removing the stones and piling them on either side. The fact that it had remained in this condition suggested a curious observation. This talus must have been the work of a series of tremendous floods, but for 2000 years since the path was abandoned, no flood on the same scale could have occurred, or it must have washed the stones, with which the surrounding surface was covered, on to the road.

When we reached the steep sides of the ravine we followed a series of zigzags splendidly engineered, and always, whatever the obstacles, following exactly the same gradient, from which I assumed that it was used by beasts of burDescending into the valley on the other side our Bedawin's dogs left us, following up the scent of something. Presently we heard them barking among some cliffs to our right. Taking out my glass, I made out an ibex climbing the cliff and another on the face of a rock, at the base of which the dogs were vehemently baying it. It was only a female, and G., who got up to it first, declined to shoot, but climbed 2000 feet higher in the vain hope of catching sight of the other, which was a young male. When I approached the dogs, the goat had placed herself where it seemed impossible for anything but a fly to cling, and where she might have

safely remained, as I had no desire to annex this poor little sad-colored desert nanny. I tried to stalk near enough to Kodak the group, but, getting a glimpse of me, she sprang down, and the dogs, after a short course of 200 yards, caught her, strange to say, with very little injury to skin or bone. She was heavy in kid, or she would have quickly shown them her heels. Our Bedawi was close up, and in a trice had tied her legs, while fastened a handkerchief over her eyes to prevent her struggling. The females of this species are much smaller than the rams, and we had no difficulty in carrying our prisoner down the valley to the spot where we proposed to camp. We proceeded to sit upon her fate. I should have liked to carry a live female of the species as an offering to the Zoological Society. On the other hand, the creature would have to spend ten days in a bag, on the back of a camel, an ordeal which might be attended with inconvenience to us, and certainly would be, under the circumstances, to the lady in question. Our Luxor attendant, who had not hitherto come out as a linguist, remarked: "Next week him make little boy." That settled the point. We elected to give her her liberty, but not without protests from the Arabs, the lawful prey of whose bow and spear she was, and who strongly objected to allowing good meat to run away. We waited till it was too dark for the dogs to follow her, and then released her. She skipped off into the darkness without sign of hurt.

This camp was an al fresco one under the lee of a large Yessar bush. Free from the awe-inspiring presence of our dragoman, our ragged company of nomads did the honors gracefully, and initiated us into the mysteries of their cuisine. They would have liked to tell us many things, but we had no interpreter. Round an angle of rock we found a sand-strewn chamber for the ladies. Under the stars we lay wondering whether this death-like stillness would ever again be broken with the ring of hammer and chisel. Near us were the remains of a little Roman town and its temple and tank, shaken to pieces by earthquakes; at least I assumed that to be the cause of the ruins,

as all motive for depredation of the usual kind seemed wanting. If the quarrymen lived here, they must have had a stiff daily climb of 2000 feet to their work. G. had stumbled on one quarry in the eastern wing of the mountain in the course of his solitary hunt of the night before. The principal quarry is in the western wing. It took us nearly three hours to reach it, not following the ancient and well-defined -paths, but a ridge which terminated near our camp. We followed this unusual course, hoping to make some fresh discovery; and on the ridge, at a great height, we came on some workmen's huts not before observed, and found a block of black diorite which they had used to sharpen their tools upon.

On all the mountain-side I saw no scrap of vegetation except one small fleshy-leaved plant, right in the quarry itself, but that was so full of sap that to pluck it was like washing the hands in cool water. The side of the moun. tain is scored by finely executed zigzag paths, which the ibex, now the only inhabitants, had found very convenient for bedding-down places; and wide slides for lowering the blocks of porphyry were carried straight down the mountain-side. This operation was effected by the aid of solid stone platforms which served as fulcra. The quarried faces showed the lines of wedge-holes by which the blocks were broken off. From the number of these in preparation I inferred that the quarries must have been abandoned suddenly.

This world-renowned rock consists of small white crystals imbedded in a reddish paste. The perquisite of emperors, it was fetched at enormous cost of life and treasure for their own glorification, and the decoration of heathen temples. It was this porphyry which originated the saying "Born in the purple." A Byzantine Empress lined a chamber with it for her accouchement, the material having been brought from Rome. Being thus rare and of matchless quality and everlasting hardness, it was always accounted precious, and when new religions supplanted the old, the temples were plundered for the churches and mosques. Even Westminster Abbey and CanterNEW SERIES.-VOL. LIX., No. 4.

bury Cathedral have thus drawn some plaques of pavement from this small quarry, 4000 feet above the Red Sea. It is a curious fact that, with all their love of fine stones, the ancient inhabitants of Egypt do not appear to have discovered the porphyry.

As the Gulf of Suez was not more than twenty miles distant, it was diffi cult to understand why the stone was not removed that way; but it must be remembered that though, at a much earlier age, there was water communication from the head of the Gulf of Suez to the Nile, it had ceased to be available long before Roman times, and, on the other hand, the blocks, once barged at Koptos, on the Nile, would reach the coasts of Italy without change of bottom.

Under one of the quarry faces' we sat, admiring the splendid view of the mountains of Sinai. Brother Felix Fabri ascended the loftiest of them, Gebel Katarina, four hundred and fifty years ago, and thus describes the reverse view of the range upon which we were, and what he was told of its inhabitants :

Beyond the gulf of the sea toward the south, we saw, as we looked down toward the west, an exceeding high mountain, which they call Olympus of Ethiopia. At sunrise this mountain pours forth flames in a terrible fashion for five hours. From this mountain Æthiopia begins, which country was of old named Atlanta, and is bounded by the river Nile. It is a very wide land, and brings forth strange men and wondrous beasts in its wildernesses. Some of these men look upon the sun when he rises and sets with dreadful curses, and always angrily abuse the sun, because of their sufferings from the heat. There satyrs run about, who are so like men that they are reckoned to be men indeed, though they are not so, and there many wonders in that country.

His remark about the flaming mountain doubtless relates to the Porphyry Mountain. It would be about the most southerly peak visible to him, and is called Gebel Dukhan, or the "Mountain of Smoke." Is it not probable that both the name and the tradition of which the pilgrim speaks had their origin in the smoke made by the quarrymen, many of whose huts were placed on the actual crest of the ridge, easily visible from Sinai, and over an immense area of country?

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We had to leave our shelter before

the sun had moderated, for to reach our main camp it was necessary to descend into the valley and recross the chain. Henceforth Our caravan journeyed southward, but to the east of the main chain. We hoped to get some hunting on the Munfia Mountains, but we were not more successful than before. Gebel Sheyib is perhaps the finest peak of the range, and I was anxious to make acquaintance with it; but foot-hills, and a pass said to be impassable for loaded camels, drove us out toward the coast, and we had no time to come to close quarters with it. The wonderful sea sunrises were some compensation. We commonly left camp on foot by early twilight, and having proceeded for some distance climbed some low hill to watch the marvellous display. The moon, just then at its full, set about the same time behind the jagged mountains to the westward. A faint twinkle of a distant lighthouse on one of the islands slowly paled before the growing light. To the eastward the foot-hills formed a sharply cut pattern of purple against the horizon, but with wide gaps, which showed the sea, reflecting the radiance on its heaving surface.

Once and again on this side we encountered a few Arabs pasturing small herds of sheep. Some of them were of the Ababdeh tribe, quite a different race to our Maazeh, and much nearer to the negroid type. They come from further south, and have, in fact, no right to be here; but for the moment their feuds are composed, and our people were friendly with them.

They live in tents made of mats of woven palm leaves. The Maazeh use The Maazeh use goat hair cloth. They have only one fault, which comes of a desire to please. According to them, the next place is always crowded with Taytal. From their language and demeanor you would think that there would not be room enough for so many on the rocks.

We sought, and found, the Roman quarry of the famous "Starling winged" granite, and thence cruised southward along the watershed, till we

arrived at Jiddama, and penetrated its noble gorge, which has a grand supply of water. It might be useful if ever this route is required for military purposes. In this valley were stone circles, similar, I imagine, to those described by visitors to Sinai, but I hope to go and see the latter for myself about the time that this paper sees the light. Now it was time to turn eastward, and we once more faced the waterless plain. At last the thin dark line of the palms of Keneh appeared, and gradually took individual shape as we approached. Then the most beautiful mirage appeared. The palm-trees seemed to be growing on islands and to fringe the wide lagoon with luxuriance. The witchcraft was broken in upon by a prosaic chimney and puffing steam, in connection with a gooleh factory, all reflected on the burnished surface.

No ripple

Soon we left the patient stillness of the desert and heard the hum of life. The sun flashed on the bronzy wings of doves and steel blue of pigeons. The rustle of palm-leaves was broken by the creaking and groaning of shadoufs, and the splash of water raised by them. How different the people, too, from the nomads behind us! These last have little to do but watch their starveling flocks; little, too, to eat. from the storms of the outside world reaches this back water. The Fellaheen, on the other hand, are busy all day long. The generous Nile mud, in which they sow their seeds, smiles back upon them with green blades. They have no care or anxiety, unless the Nile rises a foot higher or a foot lower than the normal, or the tax-gatherer tickles them with the kourbash. I wonder which race is the happier; or are we Northerners better off with our fretting life, and machines and books, and endless strife? Why does not some Edison invent a delicate balance for weighing happiness? Anyhow I am certain that a month in the desert with chosen companions would rank high.-Nineteenth Century.

SHAKESPEARE'S NATURAL HISTORY.

A NEW LIGHT ON "TITUS ANDRONICUS."

BY PHIL ROBINSON.

DR. JOHNSON, speaking of "Titus Andronicus,' says, "All the editors and critics agree in supposing this play spurious. I see no reason for differing from them; for the color of the style is wholly different from that of the rest of the other plays." What the "color of the style" may mean I must leave to other critics to decide; but if continuity of sentiment and sympathy, of observation and tradition, of fact and fancy, of serious opinion and whim, of thought and word, upon every point connected with Nature, has any tendency to prove and establish the common authorship of " Titus Andronicus" and, let me say, the "Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet," or " Midsummer Night's Dream," why, then, Shakespeare was, surely, the writer of all four.

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There are two lines on which authorship may be disputed-namely, the absence of that tone of thought and of expressions that are familiar in the alleged author, or the presence of a tone of thought and of expressions which are foreign to him. Upon which ice will the critics venture in the present case? Are there in the natural history of this play any peculiarities which might be quoted as evidence against Shakespeare's authorship? Yes, there are two; but even these very peculiarities themselves, considered with a full knowledge of the natural history of the whole of Shakespeare, will be seen to be the strongest evidence in favor of his having written the play.

For instance, three times in a single Act in this play the writer uses the word "panther." Titus invites the Emperor "to hunt the panther"; Marcus boasts to the Emperor that he has dogs which "will rouse the proudest panther in the chase," and Aaron the Moor leads the Emperor to the place where, he says, heespied the panther fast asleep.

That animal is never mentioned again in Shakespeare's plays.

But, after all, this singularity of the panther in the play is not more curious

than another in "Troilus and Cressida" (which is not doubted to be Shakespeare's) in which the elephant is mentioned three times and never again (except for an allusion to a pitfall in "Julius Cæsar") in the whole of the plays.

Now, the elephant was obviously a far more useful beast to Shakespeare, being more familiar and more abounding in suggestion and curiosity than the panther, which, after all, was only a variant of the "leopard," the "libbard," and the "pard," all of which Shakespeare uses. Yet Shakespeare, having once employed that striking beast the elephant, discards it forever. This was a way of his. So the critic may make nothing out of this appearance of a solitary panther in "Titus Andronicus."

Nor can he make any more out of the other singularity of the play—namely, that it contains the one and only mention in all his works of the mistletoe"the baleful mistletoe." With all his woods, not a single bunch of mistletoe! A play like "Cymbeline" has not a reference to it.

Yet if any one will glance over the bard's flora he will find that Shakespeare uses a great number of common plants only once-for instance, the holly, poppy, clover, brambles, lavender, and harebell, etc., and, most remarkable of all perhaps (and, in a hunter, such as Shakespeare undeniably was, quite inexplicable), fern. For it is a fact that, in spite of all the miles he must have ridden and walked through, the scores of deer he must have startled from the fern, the times innumerable he must have lain down to hide or rest in the fern, he only mentions the plant once, and then it is to refer to the fictitious properties of its seed. This neglect of the common country flora is distinctly characteristic of Shakespeare. Among other trees he only mentions the ash once (and then as the shaft of a Volscian spear!), the birch once, as furnishing

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