and our luggage, except that of the Scot, which was sent to the hotel. The evening before, we had bidden poor A. farewell, little thinking we should ever see him again. He talked happily enough of an expedition to Beyroot in the summer, and, concealing our misgivings, we encouraged the idea, and helped to make plans we never hoped to carry out. The three travellers dined together for the last time, and endeavoured to be as cheerful as they could under the circumstances; but they were not destined to part after all.

In the morning, after everything had been sent on board, we returned to the hotel, partly to inquire for poor A., partly to bring the Scot down to the shore to see us off. As we were still lingering in the porch, A.'s servant came down with a pale face. His master was breathing very hard, he said, and did not seem to recognise him. We ascended to his chamber, and summoned the doctor in haste. But there was nothing to be done. The rays of the morning sun entered the open window, but the darkness of death had already shadowed our friend's face.

We had little time to give way to sorrow. In that southern land burial follows death within a few hours, and before many of the sojourners in the hotel knew he was gone, they were summoned to attend his funeral.

In the midst of the sunshine, under the trees of the garden, two carpenters worked all morning at a huge

box, and the gay tourists who came and went did not know that they were making a coffin. A. had died. at a quarter before nine. By half-past three all was prepared, and we wrapped him in his plaid and laid him reverently to rest. The landlady covered the coffin with a white sheet on which wreaths of lovely flowers had been arranged, and four stout Arabs took up the light burden, followed by his three friends and many of those who, but the day before, had conversed with him as he reclined in his chair on the shady side of the terrace.

The Coptic church at Luxor is a quaint building entered from a narrow lane by a court, over the door of which is a wooden cross. It has five aisles, supported by pillars, and the apse is shut off by a beautiful screen of carved woodwork, over which hang an old "gold-ground" picture of two saints, and a modern German lithograph of the Holy Family. The body was borne into the sanctuary; and while a kind clergyman from the hotel read the solemn English service, the Coptic priest and his assistants swung the censer round the coffin, and stuck long candles at the four corners. The scene was strange but very impressive, and tears were not wanting among those who stood amid the shadows of the dimly-lighted church.

We next took our sad way through the outskirts of the town to the summit of a little knoll on the

road towards Karnac, whose colossal pylons and lofty

A A

pillars were visible through the groves of palms. Here is a little enclosure in which rest the bones of those few English people who have died at Luxor. In one corner was a vacant space, and here the grave was dug, and when the last words had been said and the last blessing pronounced, we left the body of our friend departed in charge of the priests and officers of the old Jacobite church.

The sun began to set as the last rites were finished, and we returned sadly to the town. We made our acknowledgments to the Coptic community at the house of a native gentleman, and were gratified by the sympathetic kindness with which the old priest received our thanks. There was much to be done and many letters to be written, and I was not sorry when one of the most melancholy days I had ever spent had come to an end.

THE REIS.

The Voyage to Sioot-The Famine District Again-Belianeh-A Hospitable Sheykh-A Concert-Sioot.

THE Scot prepared to accompany his friends in their little boat, and before day had dawned we were ready to start, and saw our last sight of the Theban mountains, the Colossus, the Temples, and the lonely hillock on the road to Karnac, by the time the sun had fairly risen.

Of our voyage, which lasted eight days, there might be much to tell, but the daily routine wanted all elements of adventure. We slept that night at Bellaseh, where the goolas, so universally used in Egypt, are chiefly made. Here, as one of us remarked, "we lay among the pots," our tent being

pitched on the bank beside the heaps of jars, close to the river, in a grove of magnificent palms. The great jars of porous earthenware which were around us are known all over Egypt as ballases. Query, has our word ballast any connection with ballas? A ballas is so called even in Alexandria. The bank here was crowded with boats loading, and great stacks of earthen jars. The moon, which had denied us her countenance in our ride, was now in wonderful beauty and radiance, and before turning in we had a walk among the corn-fields and the palms, and so made up for a day chiefly spent, except for an hour in the market-place at Goos, in lying under the awning and talking of our friend who was gone. It seemed so strange alive, intelligent as usual, full of interest in our journey, questioning us as to what we had seen, listening to our historical speculations, criticising our views, forming plans for the summer, and within twenty-four hours dead and buried! Some one remembered and applied Mrs. Browning's lines

"Just so young but yesternight,
Now he is as old as death.

He has seen the mystery hid

Under Egypt's pyramid :

By those eyelids pale and close,

Now he knows what Rhamses knows."

By degrees, as the pink peaks of the Thebaid faded from our view in the sunshine, and as turn after turn of the river brought us once more to the table