One of the great wants of Egypt is the discovery of coal. At present fuel is costly, and all the coal used in the mills and on railways and steamers, must be imported, and, of course, at heavy expense. Explorations have been made on the upper Nile, and elsewhere, in the hope of finding coal, but they have not yet been successful. Small deposits have been found in isolated localities, but none that could be profitably worked. Lower Egypt does not offer much hope to the coal-searcher, but there are parts of the Soudan where the prospect is better. A wide coal-bed, accessible from the river, so as to ensure a low cost, would be a great boon to the country. There is very little wood for fuel, and among the peasants, dry camel-dung is extensively used.

After looking at the sugar mill, we strolled through the town of Minieh, and at the farther side, found a large crowd of people. They were looking at a juggler, who was performing a variety of tricks, none of them specially interesting, and compelling a couple of small boys to go through a comic dialogue, that evidently pleased the people very much, to judge by their immoderate laughter. The fellow had a large snake, which he wound around his neck, and had taught to dance, but his snake-charming was evidently the least of his performances.

Occasionally he allowed the snake to run on the ground, and when thus free, the reptile went around the circle with his head raised, and created a great deal of disturbance among the boys in the front row.

Our introduction to sight-seeing, at Beni-Hassan, in upper Egypt, was not prepossessing. There were donkeys on the bank, without saddles or bridles, and the worst donkeys that I ever saw offered for anybody to ride. The people were as bad as the donkeys, and presented a forlorn appearance; the inhabitants of this locality were formerly famous for their thieving propensities, and so bad were they in this respect that Ibrahim Pasha sent a military force to destroy their village and scatter its occupants. It would not be safe for a small-boat to lie there now over night, except with a very watchful guard. They beset us when we went on shore, and there was a crowd around me, with a dozen donkeys offering at once. I found a donkey that was fairly decent, but, while my back was turned, somebody else mounted him, and I was forced to take another and a poorer beast.

The donkey that I obtained must have been one of those possessed by the Beni-Hassanites when their village was destroyed by the Pasha’s order, forty years ago, and I am not sure but that he dated from one of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. He had much less hair than mud on his back, and I suspected that he passed his time in a mud-hole when not otherwise engaged. The saddle fitted him in a manner fearful and wonderful to behold, and there was some doubt as to whether it touched him anywhere. When I mounted him, he sat down in a manner perfectly natural for a dog, but not altogether so for a donkey. The result of this performance was to send me over backwards and leave me with my shoulders on the ground and my feet in the air. I found this position inconvenient, and also provocative of mirth in others, and therefore did not long maintain it. Even the donkey boy laughed, a proceeding which showed how little he knew of polite society.

These tombs, or grottos, are hewn in the solid rock, part of them on the bluff, fronting the river, and the rest in a ravine, or valley, that runs inland from the alluvial land of the Nile. The rock is a soft limestone, not difficult to quarry, and quite possibly when these grottos were made, the stone may have been softer than now. The excavations belong mostly to the eleventh and twelfth dynasties, and therefore are not as old as the pyramids of Gizeh and Sakkarah, but older than the temples and monuments at Thebes. They are old enough for all practical purposes, and are very much out of repair.

The walls are covered with paintings and inscriptions, that throw much light on the manners and customs of the time, and it would take more space than I can spare to describe them. Among the most interesting is a series of paintings representing the arrival of some strangers in Egypt; they were at first supposed to be Joseph and his brethren, but this can hardly be, as the tomb was made several hundred years before Joseph’s arrival. In one of the tombs there are representations of various tradesmen at work, and among them are barbers, shoemakers, painters tailors, glass-blowers, and goldsmiths. There are also people playing ball, wrestling, and throwing heavy stones, and in one place a couple of patrons of the prize ring are indulging in the noble art of manly disfiguration.

The tombs, or grottos, are square or oblong chambers, cut in the rock, and the most of them are so well lighted through their door-ways, that candles are not needed. In some instances several chambers are connected, and some of them have wells leading to pits, below where was the real tomb. They are well above the valley, out of the reach of the highest inundations, and from their front there is quite a pretty view. In front of some of them the rock is hewn into pillars and columns, that look at first glance as though brought from elsewhere.

The present city is modern, only about twenty-five hundred years old, and it has borne its present name through that period.

One of the effects of travelling in Egypt is, that you get in the way of regarding nothing as ancient that has less than three thousand years of age.

To my surprise I found that my calculations were wrong, and my piastre went into the pocket of the card thrower. Then I tried to get back the money I had lost—-just as many another has tried to do—and my stake went the same way. I kept on a piastre or half a piastre at a time, watching the fellow closely, and thinking I ought to be equal to him in shrewdness. I must have tried as many as twenty times, losing altogether about a franc, and not once did I win.

I gave it up at last, and by this time the Professor came up and concluded to try his hand. He fared no better than I did, but kept on until he lost twice as much as I. We gave the fellow half a franc “backsheesh” for his skill, and credited him with being fitted for his business. If he lives and can find plenty of patrons, he will get rich in the course of time.

Most of the games of the Egyptians are of kinds which suit their sedate dispositions. Games partly or wholly hazardous are very common among all ranks of this people. The game of cards is almost always played for money or for some other stake, and is called by way of distinction “the game of hazard.” Persons of the lower orders in the towns of Egypt are often seen playing at this and other games at the coffee shops; but frequently for no greater stake than that of a cup of coffee. Many of them play chess, draughts, and backgammon. Their chess men are of simple forms, as they are forbidden by their religion to make an image of anything that has life.

Siout is famous for the manufacture of pipe-bowls, coffee cups, and other things out of a fine clay that abounds in the neighborhood, and most of our passengers supplied themselves in the bazaars. We had to bargain a great deal to save ourselves from being swindled, and even then we paid some pretty high prices. Another article they offered us, was fans of ostrich feathers, and their prices were about half what the same things would bring in Cairo. There are some manufactories of cotton goods at Siout, but the most of the articles sold in the bazaars come from other places.

The river above and below Siout winds considerably, and sometimes the dahabeeahs are greatly retarded, going around the bends. Nature has very well arranged the navigation of the Nile. The general course of the stream is nearly due North; during the winter the wind blows almost steadily from the North, so that you can be quite sure of reaching your destination without great delay. You can sail up stream with the wind, and in going down the boat floats and is rowed just enough to give her steerage way.

When an ascending boat is becalmed, the crew is sent on shore with a tow rope, to which they are harnessed like so many oxen. They can make twelve or fifteen miles a day by this sort of work, and we frequently saw them engaged at it.

The first of the temples of ancient Egypt as we ascend the river, is the one known as that of Sethe I, and called also the temple of Abydos. All along the river above Siout, there are the remains of temples and traces of ruined cities, and every year fresh discoveries are made, which throw light upon the history of the country.

It was about breakfast time when we arrived, and as the donkeys had been telegraphed for, they were already waiting for us. We started soon after breakfast, as we had a ride of three hours before us, and it was necessary to get to Abydos before the sun was at meridian.

The road lay through fields of peas in blossom, through other fields of beans, and others of sugar cane and doura stalks. Everywhere the verdure was thick and luxuriant, and remember that we were in the month of January.

We passed several villages and saw many groups of natives at work in the fields, and here and there we saw camels and buffaloes tied to stakes, and feeding upon the rich grass. An animal is tied where he can have a range of forty or fifty feet, and he is not moved until he has eaten the herbage down to the roots, so that there shall be no waste.

The villages consisted of little groups of mud houses, that possessed no attractions, and when one sees the dirt and general wretchedness about them, the surprise is that the inhabitants do not die before reaching a dozen years of age.

The villages are built on mounds to keep them out of the way of the inundation which covers all the flat country and makes it difficult to move about.

I had on this ride a donkey boy, who was the most persistent beggar that I ever encountered in all the course of my life.

When I started on a ride in Egypt, I made it a rule to inform the driver that I would give him a present when the journey was concluded, and this promise was generally satisfactory. If he asked for it at the start, I informed him that he would not get it till we were through with each other, and it was rare indeed that this statement did not quiet him.

Next I did thrash him, and that insured peace for awhile; then I was bothered again, and thrashed him again, so that I had some pretty fair exercise for my arms.

To the ordinary visitor, the attractive features of this temple are its massive proportions, the solidity of its structure, the care shown in all the details, and not least of all, the vast quantity of sculptured scenes and hieroglyphic records that abound everywhere. But the historian of Egypt fixes his eye on the eastern wall of a narrow passage way, leading from the second hall to one of the smaller chambers.

Here King Sethi, and Rameses, his son, are represented making offerings to seventy-six kings who have preceded them, the name of Sethi being the last of the list. The names are there, and apparently in chronological order. This is the famous tablet of Abydos, which has made so much sensation among the students of the history of Ancient Egypt, as it has enabled them to make up the list of the kings from Menes, founder of the First Dynasty, down to Sethi, the second king of the XIXth Dynasty.

Its discovery in 1865 has removed much of the mystery surrounding the old empire, and surpasses in importance any single discovery that has been made. The tablet of Thebes, now in the British Museum, is of far less consequence than this.

There is another temple not far from this, but in a much more ruined state. It was evidently of great beauty at the time of its construction, as the walls were lined throughout with alabaster, and covered with sculptures richly painted with colors that still remain.

All around there are tombs and heaps of rubbish, marking the site of the city and of its necropolis; and whenever the excavations are renewed on an extensive scale, we shall doubtless hear of some important discoveries.

One of our favorite amusements at each landing-place was to make the natives scramble for money. They came down in large numbers, sometimes two or three hundred of them, and kept up a continual howl of “Backsheesh, O, Howadji!” that sounded very much like the murmurs of a mob. They gathered on the bank opposite the stern of the boat, and were ready to catch all the money we would throw to them. We had a supply of copper for just such cases, and by a judicious use of it, we made a franc go a great ways, and this was the way we would distribute it.

One of us would take a copper, and after balancing and aiming it several times, would give it a toss. A mass of hands would be stretched to receive it, and the crowd would sway in the direction of the falling coin. If it struck in the dirt, a dozen Arabs would spring upon the place where it fell, and there would be a scramble for it. Sometimes the struggle would be so fierce, that the cloud of dust raised thereby would completely conceal the combatants, and they would emerge with torn garments.

Our best fun was in tossing the money so that it would fall just at the river’s edge; the rear of the crowd would sway forward to seize it, and their swaying and surging would press the front rank into the water, so that in a little while we would have half the crowd dripping from an involuntary bath. The small boys were generally on the lookout for this, and removed their clothes at an early part of the performance, so that we had them in puris naturalibus. The men and girls were generally more modest, but not always so.

The boys were whipped into their clothes, and public decency was thereby protected, but only for a short time. The boat was to lie there half an hour longer, and we wanted the fun to continue.

The process of disrobing was not an elaborate one. A boy would peel himself in about ten seconds, as he had only a single garment, a sort of long shirt, to remove. This shirt is almost invariably made of blue cotton, like the material which we call “denims” in America, and such as the hod-carrying Celt and other laboring men generally use for overalls.

All the boys appeared to know how to swim, and they had no hesitation at rushing into the river. We had swimming matches among them, by attaching coppers to doura stalks and throwing them out into the stream, where they were instantly pursued and overtaken.

One of the passengers heated a piastre at the cook’s galley, and then threw it out; the boy who took it immediately dropped it, and it was seized by another and larger boy, who dropped it in turn. It didn’t burn them, but was just warm enough to feel uncomfortable.

The Almeh is a professional singer, and dancing is neither her profession nor practice; the ghawazee dance, but do not sing.

Under the guidance of the dragoman we went to an obscure house in a narrow street, and were shown up a flight of somewhat rickety stairs, and into a room that was anything but palatial.

There were divans on three sides of the room, and on these we were seated; the dancers and the musicians occupied the floor in the centre, and as soon as we were seated, the performance began. The music consisted of a couple of drums, shaped like a squash, with the large end cut off and covered with a piece of drum-leather, and of a sort of violin or guitar, and a kind of reed flute. There was also a tambourine, but it had less prominence than the drums, which were the real pieces de resistance. The drums were beaten with the fingers in rather a slow measure; the music was of a melancholy, barbaric character, and consisted mainly of time without much melody. Some of the musicians were men, I think only two of them, but as they were all squatted on the floor, and there was a general similarity of dress, it was hard to distinguish the sexes.

The dancing girls wore white dresses that flowed down to the heels and were very short in the waist On the upper part of the body is a jacket, cut very short, and frequently separated an inch or two from the dress below it. The jacket is sometimes richly embroidered, and I saw several dresses that were rather regal in appearance.

The head-dress consists of the natural hair braided in ringlets, and where this is small in quantity it is supplemented with store hair, as our own belles supplement theirs. In either case there is a liberal decoration of small coins and pendants braided into the hair or attached to it, and the display of jewelry is generally quite profuse.

Two or three Arabs were peering in at the door, the room was wholly Arabic in character, and the only occidental suggestion was the party of spectators squatting or sitting on the divans. There was a dim light from half a dozen candles, and outside a small fire occasionally sent up a weird flash. The scene was a fine one for an artist.

For a quarter of an hour the dance went on, and gradually the movements became more and more excited. Then there was a pause and then a re-commencement, and then another pause at which the ladies retired for a few moments while we took a fresh filling to our pipes or lighted fresh cigars. When the dancing girls returned they were in a much lighter costume than the preceding one, a costume that permitted one to see the full development of the form, as it did away entirely with the long dress and with other garments that hindered the movements. I doubt if the manager of any theatre ever dared to go quite as far in dressing or undressing his ballet troupe as did the manager of the Ghawazee at Keneh. With the exception of their head dresses of false hair and jingling coins, and their necklaces and rings, the whole half dozen of girls didn’t have clothes enough about them to fill a snuff box. You could have sent their entire lot of garments by mail with a single postage stamp.

Immediately on their re-appearance the music re-commenced, and this time with a more vigorous measure, so that the scene became enlivening.

The place into which we were ushered was a large hall, and the same sort of dance given in honor of some German visitors was going on. The girls were more richly dressed than at the performance we had just witnessed, and the room being much larger they had more space for their movements. The musicians were more numerous, and as there was a better light in the room the scene was brighter. But the spectators were sitting on chairs instead of divans and the host was dressed a la European, with the exception of the everlasting fez which covered his head.

Altogether the scene was much less Oriental, and it lacked the careless abandon that had made one of the attractions of the dance at the home of the Ghawazee. So after a short stay we thanked our host, the Consul, and returned to the boat.

Many travellers have praised the beauty of the dancing girls, and several artists of note, among the Germans, have visited Egypt to paint them. I had formed such a picture of their beauty that I was rather disappointed at the reality. Of the six that danced before us two were positively ill-looking, and two others, though not uncomely in features, had grown rather too fat to be attractive. The other two were pretty and well formed, and had the others been like them, or had we seen only these two we might have shared the feelings of many who have gone before us.

Of the two beauties one was a pure blooded Arab, and the other evidently of mixed blood Arab with a streak, and a broad streak too, of Nubian. Their forms were exquisite and would have filled the eye of the sculptor of the Greek Slave. Their limbs were full and rounded, and every muscle so far as we could see was of the proper development. Their eyes were full and liquid in their tenderness, and the long lashes set them out like a lustrous frame. The dark skin was smooth and the necks were flung from side to side in a shower of ebony spray as its wearers glided and swung around the apartment, where we looked upon them. Fortunate indeed had we been had these been the only dancing girls to meet our eyes at Keneh.

Everywhere through Egypt water is filtered in large jars, some of them holding nearly a barrel, and it is carried on the heads of