in the public bath, but the Antiquary contented himself with a survey of the curious old dome supported on great granite pillars which may once have formed the chief ornaments of a temple of Hapi, the wolf-headed guardian of highways and the local divinity of the ancient Sioot.

There was little sleep to be had in the well-peopled beds of the Greek lodging-house and we rose with the dawn for a last packing up, before we betook ourselves to the platform and commenced our last day's journey.

ATHOR AT SILSILIS.

APPENDIX

OF

LETTERS RELATING TO THE FAMINE IN

UPPER EGYPT.

THE first letter was written on our return, and appeared on the 13th March. It was pointedly referred to and confirmed by two members of Parliament in the House of Commons the following evening :

To the Editor of the Times.

"SIR,-Having just returned from an excursion through the Said from Siout to Luxor, I venture to ask your leave to call the attention of your readers to the awful state of distress in which we found the people. I cannot help thinking that since it is by the encouragement that lenders in England have given to the Khedive to spend the bread-money of his unhappy people on distant wars and private extravagance, it will be but fair that they should have an opportunity, if they desire it, of doing something to alleviate the misery they have not very indirectly caused. We rode on donkeys 200 miles through the more remote districts. Everywhere the most heartrending state of poverty was revealed. Taxation having taken from the Arab every reserve he may have

saved in years of comparative prosperity, the failure of the dourra crop, through the excessive inundation of this year, deprived him of any possible means of subsistence. Near the sugar factories the famine was proportionately greater, as the drain upon the resources of the people is, of course, heavier where a large area of land has been seized for a crop which returns nothing to the actual cultivator, and where forced labour in the fields and factory deprives the peasant of his most valuable time. It was sad, in the midst of so much want, to see men driven with whips to labour for the English bondholder, while the fields were lying untilled, and the repeated asseverations of the French superintendent that "every man was paid once a month in silver" only showed by his vehement emphasis that such payment was a new and remarkable feature. In the town of How we saw men actually die in the street; but the skeleton children were the most shocking sight. When children are reduced to skin and bone, the famine must indeed be sore in the land. In one place we saw a boy gnawing the husks of sugar-cane left in the fields. At every village the cry of the mourners was heard as we passed. No pen can describe the condition of the crowd which used every day to assemble as we took our luncheon on the roadside. Our very crumbs and the oil of our sardines were greedily seized. At Dendera we reached the river's bank and crossed to Keneh. We were much impressed at the sight of a passing steamer belonging to the Khedive, which looked to our eyes glaringly and ostentatiously magnificent after the scenes we had witnessed among his Highness's subjects. We were told that two Englishmen were on board. 'No doubt,' we remarked, they will survey the country through an opera-glass and return thinking they know all about it.' At Keneh we found the worst of the distress was over; but a

few weeks before a kind-hearted native gentleman whose name I dare not mention, fed as many as 7,000 starving persons for some days. We heard in several places of similar acts of charity; and, but that I am afraid of involving any of my informants in unpleasantness with the authorities, I could give chapter and verse for many particulars of the famine to which I can only allude. At one place the Cook's tourists fed 1,000 people with bread. The first news we heard when we reached Luxor was that the Viceroy had given a magnificent entertainment to the Europeans at Cairo. It is of course but right that money should be spent in Cairo, but the account of these festivities jarred unpleasantly on our feelings after the scenes we had witnessed during the past eight days. We next heard that the Khedive had sent two Englishmen to investigate the reports of the distress, and a few days later. came the news that they had reported 'the accounts of the distress in Upper Egypt are greatly exaggerated.'

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"CAIRO, EGYPT, February 27.

"W. J. L.

"P.S. I have just heard, on unquestionable authority, that the two Englishmen sent to report on the famine were on board the steamer which passed us at Dendera."

I must refer to p. 378, for some remarks explanatory of the reference in this postscript.

On the 26th March the following letter was published. It was headed" From a Correspondent." I have reason to know that the writer accompanied Professor Robertson Smith, whose account therefore repeats his in one or two places, for the letters were written without collusion:

"ERMENT, February 24. “Inshallah, in another twenty days, we shall have the bean crop ready for the knife.' This is the answer always given now when inquiries are made after the late distress, of which, now that the worst is past, the fellahs do not seem anxious to furnish details. They have patiently borne want, then hunger, and lastly starvation, and now that the end seems near, they are willing to forget it all. But such a time as the last three months for the fellahs must leave traces, and famine cannot pass trackless. From Assiout upwards to Luxor the sufferings of the natives must have been and still are in one or two of the less-visited villages, appalling. Even in the large and comparatively flourishing town of Assiout, some of the sights in the streets and by the river bank were most distressing. Passing in the morning we saw a wretched old woman and two children lying on the river bank. The children were skin and bone, and the woman scarcely distinguishable as a human being. We gave her bread, but she seemed unable to eat it, and after a few sighs and moans fell back into her semicomatose state. She could hardly have lived through the night, and there were several like her. At the same place we noticed a handsome girl of sixteen or so standing on the bank. On asking her what she wanted, she replied, 'bread,' and ate greedily a piece of the coarse bran bread of the country. Her gratitude knew no bounds when presented with a few piastres, and she unfolded her small historyhow she had walked from her native village, where her family were all dead, in hopes of finding relief at Assiout, but had found none, and was still another unit added to the crowd of hunger-stricken Arabs flocking in daily. Poor Werda (Rose)! She was, however, only one of thousands, and this in a town in immediate connection with