impressions * * * uses like a child a most serious and manlike privilege." It is reproving, but some can paint, and some can preach, Poet Harriet, so runs the world away. That group of palms waving feathery in the moonlight over the gleaming river is more soul-solacing than much conclusive speculation. VI. THE IBIS FLIES. AT noon the wind rose. The Ibis shook out her wings, spread them and stood into the stream. Nero was already off. Stretching before us groups of masts and sails. southward were endless Palms fringed the westrose the handsome sum ern shore, and on the east, mer palaces of Pachas and rich men. They were deep retired in full foliaged groves and gardens, or rose white and shining directly over the water. The verandahs were shaded with cool, dark-green blinds, and spacious steps descended stately to the water, as proudly as from Venetian palaces. Graceful boats lay moored to the marge, the lustrous darkness of acacias shadowed the shore, and an occasional sakia or water-wheel began the monotonous music of the river. Behind us from the city, rose the alabaster minarets of the citadel mosque-snow spires in the deep blue—and the aerial elegance of the minor minarets mingling with palms, that seemed to grow in unknown hanging-gardens of delight, were already a graceful arabesque upon the sky. The pyramids watched us as we went-staring themselves stonily into memory forever. The great green plain between us came gently to the water, over whose calm gleam skimmed the Ibis with almost conscious delight that she was flying to the South. The Howadji, meanwhile, fascinated with the fair auspices of their voyage, sat cross-legged upon Persian carpets sipping mellow Mocha, and smoking the cherry-sticked chibouque. As life without love, said the Cairene poet to me as I ordered his nargileh to be refilled with tumbak-choice Persian tobacco-is the chibouque without coffee. And as I sipped that Mocha, and perceived that for the first time I was drinking coffee, I felt that all Hadji Hamed's solemnity and painful Mecca pilgrimages were not purposeless nor without ambition. Why should not he prepare coffee for the choicest coterie of houris even in the Prophet's celestial pavilion? For a smoother sip is not offered the Prophet by his fairest favorite, than his namesake prepared, and his other namesake offered to us, on each Nile day. The Mocha is so fragrant and rich, and so perfectly prepared, that the sweetness of sugar seems at length quite coarse and unnecessary. It destroys the most delicate delight of the palate, which craves at last the purest flavor of the berry, and tastes all Arabia Felix therein. A glass of imperial Tokay in Hungary, and a fingan of Mocha in the East, are the most poetic and inspiring draughts. Whether the Greek poets, born between the two, did not foreshadow the fascination of each, when they celebrated nectar and ambrosia as divine delights, I leave to the most erudite Teutonic commentator. Sure am I that the delight of well-prepared Mocha transcends the sphere of sense, and rises into a spiritual satisfaction-or is it that Mocha is the magic that spiritualizes sense? Yet it must be sipped from the fingan poised in the delicate zarf. The fingan is a small blue and gold cup, or of any color, of an egg's calibre, borne upon an exquisitely wrought support of gold or silver. The mouth must slide from the cup's brim to the amber mouth-piece of the chibouque, drawing thence azure clouds of Latakia, the sweet mild weed of Syria. Then, O wildered Western, you taste the Orient, and awake in dreams. So waned the afternoon, as we glided gently before a failing breeze, between the green levels of the Nile valley. The river was lively with boats. Dignified dahabieh sweeping along like Pachas of im portance and of endless tails. Crafty little cangie, smaller barques, creeping on like Effendi of lesser rank. The far rippling reaches were white with the sharp saucy sails, bending over and over, reproaching the water for its resistance, and, like us, pursuing the South. The craft was of every kind. Huge lumbering country boats, freighted with filth and vermin, covered with crouching figures in blankets, or laden with grain; or there were boats curiously crowded, the little cabin windows overflowing with human blackness and semi-naked boys and girls, sitting in close rows upon the deck. These are first class frigates of the Devil's navy. They are slave boats floating down from Dongola and Sennaar. The wind does not blow for them. They alone are not white with sails, and running merrily over the water, but they drift slowly, slowly, with the weary beat of a few oars. The little slaves stare at us with more wonder than we look at them. They are not pensive or silent. The smile, and chat, and point at the Howadji and the novelties of the Nile, very contentedly. Not one kneels and inquires if he is not a man and a brother, and the Venuses, "carved in ebony," seem fully satisfied with their crisp, closely curling hair, smeared with castor oil. In Egypt and the East generally, slavery does not appear so sadly as |