have pointed to one specimen of huge stone coping, one example of the massive, awful and beautiful columns, one of the immense statues, one sphinx, one sculptured wall, as the glory and pride of the nation. Here are acres and acres of sculptured walls-thousands of pondrous uplifted stone copings: columns multiplied till you are bewildered in walking among them; and such columns! great Jove! that double middle range in the great Temple at Karnac! They were lavish of stupendities, as if they were mere toys-they multiplied ponderosities, as though they were merely collecting nine pins for a game; and they squandered and scattered wonders of gigantic force, labour, and skill, as if such were things which THEY could manufacture by the gross. Take the avenue of Sphinxes-they are positively crowded as they crouch. There could not have been less than a thousand of these immense and beautifully carved masses, in each line of the avenue; on less than one-fifth of the 2 mile street I counted, on one line, the vestiges, distinct, of 93, and judging from the space between each where they are in better preservation and uncovered by the earth, there were three, four, and five oftentimes, in the space in which I could find but two.

By the bye, the plain-the Nile running through it—the islands are splendidly arranged. Can't talk of them now: but it was a magnificent "pick" they made in fixing on it.

I think of trying the Pyramids of Ghezah atmosphere for five or six weeks-choosing a nice tomb, sweeping it out, and hanging up my hammock in it. Cairo I am afraid of, on account of what I fear more than ought else in Egypt-the dust. Cairo's dust is worse than any other it is the sun-dried rubbish, sweepings, offal-filth (the most offensive) that are heaped up in huge, and daily increasing mounds, all round the city, dried to a powder-the least wind blows it about like smoke. The Pacha's eldest son has removed some immense heaps, and made gardens in their place-hundreds of human beings must have died in the process, but it "did good." No matter who died: he thought only of how many piastres he should pocket from the sale of crumb (cabbage), fool (beans), bussal (onions), khuss (lettuce), (try the fish bone again for this khuss), &c. He is a great farmer too; the Coke of Egypt (Egypt is his Holkham), and a great soldier to boot.

Sheffield Iris, July 9, 1839.

Alexandria, May 10th, 1839.

SHOULD circumstances, the political working of events, combining with time and place, make it nothing but an act of ordinary prudence in a man to go to bed in his boots, and sleep with his hat in his hand, to be ready for a leap through the window and a run at half an instant's warning; what shall he do whose legs are too feeble to carry his body, and boots are far too ponderous a load for his legs to bear? eh, my trusty friend? Of late days, the possibility of such circumstances

arising, and my being, inescapably, in the heart of them, has been matter of consideration to me; and I have arrived at the happy conclusion that I must lie still and submit my jugular to the knife; for there is neither leap nor run in me: my legs cannot support my body, nor can my body carry my legs; and what is as bad as either, or both together, I cannot call out in my danger for assistance, nor beg for mercy from my executioners; my voice is quite gone. But, “oh, nonsense! how can such circumstances arise? Where or whence is the remotest probability of the necessity of such a prudence?" My answer is-in the war newly stirred up between the Sultan and Mohamed Ali-in the anarchy which would run wild and riot throughout Egypt should one defeat of the Pacha bear an aspect of permanent disaster to him: to the councils and interference of the English nation, whether right or wrong, would that disaster be attributed by him, and by all his tribe: "but he would not dare to molest the English under any circumstances-he fears their power too much." Umph! this is the invulnerable shield which my contrymen hold up ever if these matters be touched npon. In the condition of things to which I am referring-the circumstances to which I allude, such a shield will be as protective from savage assault as a sheet of whitey-brown paper would be from the heat of the liquid iron at one of the blast furnaces at Ridings. A desperate man has no fears: -if you pin a rat up in a narrow corner, from which there is no escape, you'll trust to his fears that he won't bite you, won't you? So of this Rat-Wolf-with all his faculties of keen perception-his deep policy— his astonishing energy-his grasping enterprise, he retains all the sly craft, and watchful cunning, and ferocity, and vindictiveness of a barbarian well educated, and experienced in merciless, remorseless savagery: for years these ugly qualities have been held in abeyance-forcibly chained down by his own individual strength of policy and calculating forbearance it is folly to believe they are eradicated:-that they are dead: signs of their existence have ever and anon crept forth : have they slept ? No. They have but winked, and seemed to sleep; and the Wolf the while has hereby sniffed in a recollection of debts which are due; and finds his heaviest score with those he has most fawned upon, and feigned to love, the English. Does not the remembrance of the unjustifiable (such it was) destruction of his splendid fleet, at Navarino, blaze in his heart and brain, think you? The fact that he has taken that affair with such seeming quietness, has exhibited no violence, or great anger on the occasion, may be held as evidence that it is recorded, and is working in a suppressed and concealed volcanic fire."Oh, but his own interests are so deeply involved and connected with with a friendly alliance with England, that his mere selfishness will be the safeguard of English sojourners in his dominions." Hitherto it has been their safety: and I incline to think their only guardian; but I again beg to remind you that a desperate man is blind to his own interests; he has no policy in his selfishness-no craft in his fury-and I really believe that desperation would be the consequence in Mohamed Ali, of a crushing defeat in battle, and that English throats would be

the first at which he would make his spring, though he were encompassed by barrels of gunpowder, each with a lighted match sticking

in it.

Now, I really am not troubled for my throat's safety, though it does give me some twinges; for the Doctor has clapped on two blisters, which are to be kept open for a week or fortnight, because my trachea is affected. And though the awful man, the Pacha, arrived here this morning (May 12), there is no head chopped off yet, and people go upon their legs as usual. And there is now less occasion for my croaking as to my health, than has been since I arrived in Egypt. In my letter from the Pyramids, I commenced very cheerily; but before I had finished the missive I was struck down into a condition of bodily debility and misery more wretched than ever. The Khamascen wind did it ; exposure to such another life-drier would kill me. It is no less strange in some of its phenomena than it is fearful altogether. In my tomb I was comparatively cool, but on thrusting my hand forth into the outward air, the effect was of a hot flame playing round it. All the circumambience was one, a universe of, hot oven, just preparing for a batch-the blaze (the wind) roaring with the lungs of all the wild beasts of Africa congregated there, and all running mad together; the roasted dust and sand rushing screaming along on the current of the wind, and cloaking all things of heaven and earth within five yards of you, in one thick, dullbrassy, dirty-yellow obscure impenetrable: then in an instant all was hushed, dead calm, and all the world was simmering and baking in the settled fire and burning dust. For four days (a most unusual length of time for a Khamascen visit) this state of life continued. On me the effects were such as I had never heard any one speak of: copious bleeding at the nose, and (it may have been fancy only-but it felt like reality) the blood in contact with the skin, seemed to scald as it ran; my knees swelled, and my legs became utterly incapable of supporting my body. From crown to heel I felt baked into a hot paste that dried and crusted, and for several days after I endured a sense as if my whole body were burning to a cindered stake of wood, from which the hot ashes were momently dropping. It was thorough misery. This Khamascen was the first genuine one of the lot, which come in season in April and May. Khamaseen is the Arabic number of fifty, and this wind is so called from its visits being made at its pleasure, during 50 days of April and May. Another such, I say, would have killed me. I therefore had recourse to the only way in my power of avoiding their worst influence, by coming to this place; where they are also felt, but in a much modified and mitigated form: and here I am much better every way. I must make confession now, that I have been so ill ever since I started from Alexandria, that all hopes of recovery were completely bruised out of my spirit. The excessive dryness of the atmosphere, however beneficial (and I know it is so) it may be to some of the pulmonary affected, is not fit for my complaint: warmth and moisture (not damps) is what my cough requires. The delicious purity and geniality of Upper Egypt's atmosphere is the most fascinating

breathing for it really has a charm in it-I ever tried. When neither dust nor wind are going, but a gentle breeze is in motion, it is so balmy, so softly fanning; making one so buoyant and elastic;-but, oh! the piercing cold of the mornings on the River, even at Thebes, in lat. 25 or 26. But come, I am in Alexandria again, to wait for the June packet from England: full of hope as ever: I cannot walk-I crawl half a mile each day; but I am indeed very much improved since I left Cairo, and I now believe I shall return to England unaccompanied by a distressing cough, if I can remain away another winter. About three weeks ago I had no belief of living to return at all, well or ill. And now, although it is positively ascertained, within the last 36 hours, that the plague is at Alexandria, I am as free from all fear of it as if I were in England at this time. What I do dread is the prolonged imprisonment by quarantine in the Lazeretto at Malta. The twenty days will be doubled on persons coming from an infected place; and an expense of little less than twenty pounds will be forced upon me; all in submission to a mere prejudice and superstition, and some touches of official cupidity and covetousness. I must pay half a dollar per day for a man to watch me! that's only one item in the bill. It is odd enough that a man should be compelled to pay money for being imprisoned. Plague or no plague, this is quite enough to make a plague break out. This quarantine is much more likely to induce fever and pestilence than to prevent them. Well, well!

So; there could be found five men in the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society so utterly soaked and sopped in folly, so thoroughly plaistered over with love of humbug, so teeming and reeking in paltry spite, as to blackball Ebenezer Elliott!* Who are they? get their names -let them bespread on a good stareable wall; spitted as the farmer does rats, polecats, and other vermin, so that every ray of the sun may light them to the derision and scorn of every gazer. This is not the right finish to a letter, but I am compelled to end abruptly.

I commenced this on the 10th-it is now the 16th-all this time my health has steadily progressed in improvement: and Dr. Laidlaw is sure he shall put me to rights, with the aid of Alexandria's salubrious atmosphere; so in spite of the plague, he begs-he is quite earnest upon it— that I will remain in this place awhile.

* At the monthly meeting of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society, held on the 7th of March, 1839, it was proposed that Ebenezer Elliott, "the Corn-law Rhymer," should be elected a member of the society. When the voting took place he was blackballed: there being eight votes for his admission, and five against it. On the 4th of April, he was unanimously elected by a very numerous meeting of the same society; but in a letter, entered in the minute book of the society on the 2nd of May, he declined to become a member.-J. F.

Sheffield Iris, August 27th, 1839.

Algeciras, in the Month of July, 1839. Ar the sign of the brass basin, from which a good mouthful of the rim has been bitten, (Vide Don Quixote's helmet,) I am living on each side of the door is a wooden grille, chequered fashioned: adjuncts of significancy with the bitten brass basin are they over the entrance swings a double valance of old teeth, (molars and others,) which seem to have done much work in their day-other significant ornaments are visible : instance, a daub drawing of a Fan, accompanied by the information that "Se componen Abanicos y Paraaguas." Look right before you through the open door, and your retina will have reflected on it two open mahogany cases, in which several goodly rows of razors are ranged, ready for your chin; or for the chin of any other customer. Now look here and there-it's all free-your eye catches hold of high-backed, square-armed chairs; towels are idling about on chair backs or elsewhere; a mirror (rusty and cracked it is) spare specimens of head spoils are dangling and dusty, or fixed and shining, as the case may be with respect to their owners: there is a deep jar of water, and, near, bits of soap. A dapper, brisk, but bullet-eyed, plump-muscled, flexilelimbed, trim, natty-habited fellow presides here, lord of the basin, razors, &c., and high priest of the temple. From all which you may be instructed in the important fact that I am domiciliated in a barber's shop. True: and he is an Andalusian barber; not HE of Seville-the renowned, the inimitable Figaro; but quite as dapper a blade, though not so crafty, except in the art of high demand for low lodging. But then he shaves so deliciously! Ye Gods! how he does manœuvre the razor over one's chin and the adjacencies! Charming! charming! Poor woman, I pity her beardless state. Unequal are the pleasures of existence dispensed. She, alas! knows nothing of the bliss of shaving with a good razor! To his trade of chin-scraper my barber links those of dentist and blood-letter-remnants of a higher range of respectability, now grown obsolete elsewhere, but preserved in tact in Andalusia; then he is visible maker of fans (Abanicos,) and mender of parasols and umbrellas, and invisible (though all Algeciras knows the fact,) manufacturer of cigars. And his wife is also a natty, dapper, little body too, and she does nothing but sit swinging her legs under the chair "from breezy morn till dewy eve," except for some occasional five or ten minutes of dabbling in an olla savoury it is, though it consists of about a quarter of a pound of meat to some dozen pounds of vegetable conglomerate. Before the door is a line of beautiful flowering Accacias, under which are ornamented seats forming one of the four sides of a paved square, all similarly accacied and benched. In the centre of this square rises a very graceful fluted column out of a fountain of porphyry, that receives the deliciously clear and cool water through the mouths of four hook-nosed Satyr heads. A range of steps, and a green iron railing circumscribe the fountain; so that it is not invaded by filth, but access to its stores is given to the