surmounted by two tiny straight ears, like the antennæ of a cockchafer; its bite is much more venemous than that of many of the larger serpents, indeed fatal. It was the first time we had seen this inhabitant of ancient Egypt, perhaps a lineal descendant of the world-famous snake. Our stuffer' took possession of him, thus inaugurating the series of unpleasant objects which were destined to crowd our open-air dormitory. The next day we struck camp, after having vainly endeavoured to catch jackals in a wolf-trap which one of the youngest of our party had, in the innocence of his heart, brought from Paris, thus complicating his luggage quite uselessly. We set off, the asses leading the way, the baggage and camels following, in a long column. When we reached the confines of the sand, where it ceased to devour the herb-bearing earth, we deployed and spread ourselves far afield, with our guns, to try a battue amid the thousand kinds of herbage, where whole flocks of birds sat sheltering from the sand storm. Our first bag was not brilliant, but the game was very various. I wish I could be our own naturalist for a moment, that I might recall the strange names of hundreds of big and little birds which rose actually under our feet. From the white eagle to the wild duck, we

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secured a sample of almost every kind; and, laden with our useless booty, we arrived at Sakkara at five o'clock in the evening. We had passed rapidly in front of the Pyramids of Abou-Sir, which are interesting only from their form, and had now reached those of Sakkara, which, though less than the Pyramids of Gizeh, afford real archæological interest. The layers of the greatest are laid in the form of a colossal staircase, and this toothed outline produces an appearance quite special to itself, by modifying the angle formed by the apex. Its profile, slightly ogive, has something of the same strange appearance which I noticed in the Assyrian buildings at Mossoul. Our attention was particularly directed to a small temple which had been quite recently discovered by M. Mariette. Though it dates from the most distant antiquity, it looks as if it had been built yesterday, and the colouring of its hieroglyphic paintings is amazingly bright.

The result of M. Mariette's investigations is, that this beautiful little tomb is the work of one of those Pharaohs who did not hesitate before the most difficult constructions or the queerest names. This one called Ti, Ti (it is clear that he ought to have been a Japanese), had his funereal villa decorated

with sculptures and ornaments of extreme richness and delicacy. We were charmed with those hieroglyphs in which several animals were represented according to the most rigorous rules of drawing.

The following day was devoted to visiting the Sérapium. M. Mariette, the author of this wonderful discovery, was not at his head-quarters, so we had to inspect without him the series of fantastic tombs, in which thirty-three bulls, each more like Apis than the preceding, have slept for centuries, safe from time's changes. The astonishing aspect of these blocks of stone, the enormous weight which each monolith represents, put calculation to flight at first. But the more difficult the problem, the more simply and ingeniously the Egyptians solved it.

In order to introduce the tombs of the sacred bulls into the subterranean galleries which we visited, a well was cut in the rock, above the space which each enormous stone was to occupy. The well being filled up with fine sand, the block of granite was brought to its orifice; then began a process of gradual excavation, and each huge sarcophagus sank down of itself into the place assigned to it. Could anything be more simple? Now, their extraction would be a mathematical impossibility, as Cambyses knew very well when he sounded these treasure-chests, and

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made up his mind to employ the burglarious tools which he never laid aside, and to unpack the treasure piecemeal. After having thrown to the winds the sacred bones of all the bulls, he made a conscientious list of the plate, &c.; and when M. Mariette penetrated this hiding-place of the ages, there was not as much as a nail left. Its last lodger might have been a royal prince of a certain House, so clean and so clever had been the pillage. Our camp was pitched upon the border of the last deposit of vegetable sediment which the Nile had left behind it. Our tents, which faced the dry Desert, stood in verdure, and indeed almost in mud, on the edge of a blackish pond, in which the ducks dipped and guzzled. I made a study of the demarcation between the yellow burning sands and the green and fertile earth, and it was exactly like one of those geographical maps on which the departments and the provinces are severally coloured blue and green to aid the memory of the eyes. A dramatic incident occurred in the vicinity of this lake. At eleven o'clock at night, when the fires were extinguished, and everyone was asleep, a perfect army of geese flew over our heads, making a noise of which no words of mine could convey an idea. The extraordinary size of the Egyptian geese, the rush of their wings through the palm-trees, and their wild

hoarse cries, the tremendous noise made by our frightened asses and camels, made this sudden. tempest a memorable scene of uproar, In an instant our most intrepid sportsmen were on their feet, had pulled on their boots, and taken their guns, and rushed out with the hope of bagging some of our untimely visitors. But all their efforts proved fruitless; and before morning the winged army had decamped, carrying its noise and rush to some place where men and guns were not.

Sakkara and Dachour, where we were to camp on the morrow, lie on the boundary of the former site of the city of Memphis. From the Sérapium and the Pyramids of Sakkara it is easy to follow the outline of this great city, the greatest of antiquity, according to Strabo, Herodotus, and all travellers. It has yet to be discovered, for it is entirely buried in the sand, which is so incredibly difficult to search, in consequence of its constant shifting, that it is hard to say when any of the buried treasures and wonders may be brought to light. We saw numbers of bones which had been naturally disinterred by the movement of the soil, and had only to stoop at any moment to pick up quantities of human remains calcined by time. Innumerable mutilated mummies were strewn