When we had risen from table and taken seats upon the divan, the wife and daughter of our host (Syrian Christians) served us with basins of perfumed water and fine fringed towels, after which they raised the hands of the principal members of the party to their lips and foreheads and thanked them for the great honor they had done them.
The sun was by this time low, and the time for our train had quite arrived. So we left the house of our entertainer to walk the short distance to the station. On the way we met the horses of one of the viceroy's squadrons going to water. Beautiful animals they were—all dark bay or chestnut, splendidly groomed, and marching to the sound of the trumpet as steadily as if each carried a rider. The men in charge of them were well-set-up, soldier-like fellows, who, barring their white uniforms and dark faces, might have just ridden out of Knightsbridge Barracks or the gate of Saumur.
At the station we found our car just being attached to the evening-train from Cairo; which train, by the by, had been waiting for us for some time, to the very apparent disgust of the English-speaking and other European passengers. The native passengers seemed to take the delay calmly and as a matter of course, some of them spreading their prayer-carpets upon the platform to recite the evening prayer, to which the muezzins were calling from the minarets as we left the town: "La Illah illa Allāh! Mohammed du russûl Allā-ā-h!"
We were soon off, passing through most monotonous scenery, with constantly recurring groups of Fellahs and their animals returning from their long day of labor, and filing along the causeways and embankments toward the mud villages and towns, over which the pigeons were whirling their last flight before betaking themselves to their cotes for the night. The air became cooler and the moon rose as we rolled along the embankment of Lake Mareotis, and the whole scene was so calm and peaceful and conducive to reverie that it seemed a rude awakening when we dashed into the station at Alexandria and the touts and donkey-boys began their tiresome yells and shouts, as if they had never left off since morning: "Onkle Sam, sir! werry good donkey, my master."—"Dis Jim Crow! more better, sir!"—"Hôtel Mediterranée, signori!" Bidding good-night to our pleasant and courteous fellow-sightseers, we were soon clattering through the streets to the custom-house landing. Our cutter was waiting: "Up oars! let fall! give way all!" and twenty-four strong, bronzed arms were pulling us over the smooth surface of the moonlit harbor. In ten minutes we were once more on board our floating home, and turned in forthwith, tired enough to sleep without rocking.
E. S.
ACROSS STRANGE WATERS.
These winter days, my love, are short and sad—
Oh, sad and short!
But future summers will not make us glad,
Of Fate the sport.
I go; and where we have been you abide,
To face the light
Of days that pour their splendor far and wide,
And mock the night.
How you will hate their brightness well I know—
Their fragrant ways,
Thick set with bloom, free winds that come and go,
And birds that praise