no more sheep should be bought, so sadly convinced were the Howadji that evil communications corrupt good mutton.

Yet in Herodotean days, the goats were sacred to one part of Egypt, and sheep to another. The Thebans abstained from sheep, and sacrificed goats only. For they said, that Hercules was very desirous of seeing Jupiter, but Jupiter was unwilling to be seen. As Hercules persisted, however, Jupiter flayed a ram, cut off the head and held it before his face, and having donned the fleece, so showed himself to Hercules-hence, our familiar Jupiter Ammon.

But those of the Mendesian district, still says Herodotus, abstained from goats, and sacrificed sheep. For they said that Pan was one of the original eight gods, and their sculptors and painters represented him with the face and legs of a goat. Why they did so, Herodotus prefers not to mention ; as, indeed, our good father of history was so careful of his children's morals, that he usually preferred not to mention precisely what they most wish to know.

It is curious to find that the elder Egyptians had the Jewish and Mohammedan horror of swine. The swine-herds were a separate race, like the headsmen of some modern lands, and married among them

selves. Herodotus knows, as usual, why swine were abhorred, except on the festivals of the moon and of Bacchus, but as usual considers it more becoming not to mention the reason.

Is it not strange, as we sweep up the broad river, to see the figure of that genial, garrulous old gossip, stalking vaguely through the dim morning twilight of history, plainly seeing what we can never know, audibly conversing with us of what he will, but ignoring what we wish, and answering no questions forever? One of the profoundest mysteries of the Egyptian belief, and, in lesser degrees, of all antique faiths, constantly and especially symbolized throughout Egypt, Herodotus evidently knew perfectly from his friendship with the priests, but perpetually his conscience dictates silence.—Amen, O venerable Father.

I knew some bold Howadji who essayed a crocodile banquet. They were served with crocodile chops and steaks, and crocodile boiled, roasted, and stewed. They talked very cheerfully of it afterward; but each one privately confessed that the flesh tasted like abortive lobster, saturated with musk.

Hadji Hamed cooked no crocodile, and had no golden-sleeved garment. He wore 'eree or cotton drawers, past their prime, and evidently originally made for lesser legs. That first evening he fluttered

about the deck in a long white robe, like a solemnfaced wag playing ghost in a churchyard. By day he looked like a bird of prey, with long legs and a hooked bill.

IV.

THE IBIS SINGS.

WHILE the Hadji Hamed fluttered about the deck, and the commander served his kara kooseh, the crew gathered around the bow and sang.

The stillness of early evening had spelled the river, nor was the strangeness dissolved by that singing. The men crouched in a circle upon the deck, and the reis, or captain, thrummed the tarabuka, or Arab drum, made of a fish-skin stretched upon a gourd. Raising their hands, the crew clapped them above their heads, in perfect time, not ringingly, but with a dead dull thump of the palms-moving the whole arm to bring them together. They swung their heads from side to side, and one clanked a chain in unison. So did these people long before the Ibis nestled to this bank, long before there were Americans to listen.

For when Diana was divine, and thousands of men and women came floating down the Nile in

barges to celebrate her festival, they sang and clapped, played the castanets and flute, stifling the voices of Arabian and Lybian echoes with a wild roar of revelry. They, too, sang a song that came to them from an unknown antiquity, Linus, their first and only song, the dirge of the son of the first king of Egypt.

This might have been that dirge that the crew sang in a mournful minor. Suddenly one rose and led the song, in sharp jagged sounds, formless as lightning. "He fills me the glass full and gives me to drink," sang the leader, and the low measured chorus throbbed after him, " "Hummeleager malooshee." The sounds were not a tune, but a kind of measured recitative. It went on constantly faster and faster, exciting them, as the Shakers excite themselves, until a tall gaunt Nubian rose in the moonlight and danced in the centre of the circle, like a gay ghoul among his fellows.

The dancing was monotonous, like the singing, a simple jerking of the muscles. He shook his arms from the elbows like a Shaker, and raised himself alternately upon both feet. Often the leader repeated the song as a solo, then the voices died. away, the ghoul crouched again, and the hollow throb of the tarabuka continued as an accompaniment to the distant singing of Nero's crew, which