tion, and like a tower shaken, but recovering itself from falling, the Howadji allowed the quake to "reel unheededly away," and alighted quietly upon his left leg, while the liberated donkey smelt about for food in the sand, like an ass. The soaring speculations of the moment upon the text of the prospect, had made the Howadji too unmindful that the nimble clinging of his legs to the donkey's ribs was the sole belly-band of his cloth, and warrant of his seat; so the three went suddenly asunder, donkey, Howadji, and cloth, but reuniting, went forward again into Nubia, an uncertain whole.

The barking of dogs announced our arrival at Mahratta, the first Nubian village. Dull, mud Syene was only three miles distant over the desert. Yet here mud was plaster, smooth and neat, and the cleanliness of the houses-a certain regular grace in them the unveiled faces of the women, and their determined color-for they were emphatically black -made Nubia pleasant, at once and forever. These women braiding baskets, or busily spinning in the sun, with mild features, and soft eyes-their woolly hair frizzling all over their heads, and bright bits of metal glittering around their necks and in their noses and ears, were genuine Ethiopians in their own land. At once the Howadji felt a nobler, braver race. The children were gayer and healthier,

I saw no flies feeding upon Nubian eyes. The Nubian houses are square, and flat-roofed, and often palm-thatched. Grain jars stood around them, not unhandsomely, and mud divans built against the outer walls were baked by the sun into some degree of comfort. We paused in a group of women and children, and they gave us courteously to drink. Then we rode on, our route reeling always between the rocky hills and the rocky river.

Suddenly at high noon, at the end of a tortuous rocky vista, and a mile or two away, stood Philæ— form in formlessness, measured sound in chaotic discord. For a moment it was Greece visible-all detail was devoured by distance, which is enamored of general effect, and loves only the essential impression. It was a more wonderful witchery of that wild scenery, a rich revelation of forms as fair as Prospero could have built before Ferdinand's eyes. For the beauty and grace of Philæ, so seen, in that stern and vivid contrast of form and feeling, are like the aerial architecture which shone substantial before the Magician's eyes, as imaging the glory of the world-and whose delicacy sang to Ferdinand, when he knew not if it were "i' the air" or on the earth.

Philæ, so delicately drawn upon that transparent noon air, was an ecstacy of form. There were only

architraves and ranges of columns among the black beetling rocks. It soothed the eye; for in chaos here was creation And even broken columns,

stately still-ranging along a river-are as pleasant to the eye as water-flowers.

XXVIII.

PHILE.

I WISH Phile were as lovely as the melody of its name imports. But I do not dare to call Isis by the name of Venus-or if the Palmyrene Zenobia, following the triumph of Aurelian, was prettythen is Phila chained to the car of time, lovely. Poet Eliot Warburton, indeed, speaks of its "exquisite beauty." What shall the Howadji do with these poets?

Girdled with the shining Nile, Philæ is an austere beauty-Isis-like, it sits solemn-browed, column crushing column, pylons yet erect, and whole sides of temple courts yet standing with perfect pillarshuge decay, wherein grandeur is yet grand. It is strange to see human traces so lovely in a spot so lonely. Strange, after the death in life of the Nile valley, to emerge upon life in death so imperial as Philæ. For you remember that the Ibis did not pause at the temples, but beheld Thebes and Dendereh, as she flew, like pictures fading on the air.

Seen from the shore, a band of goldenest green surrounds the island The steep bank is lithe with lupin and flowering weeds. Palms are tangled, as they spring, with vines and creepers, dragon-flies float sparkling all over it-and being the sole verdure in that desolation, the shores of Philæe are gracious as blue sky after storms. A party of naked young Nubians rowed us over in a huge tub of a boat, which, with their bent boughs of trees for oars they could scarcely keep against the current. They had a young crocodile for toy, with which they played with as much delight as with a kitten. The infant dragon was ten days old, and about a foot long. It sprawled sluggishly about the bottom of the boat, as its mature relatives stretch indolently along the sandy shores, and the boys delighted to push it back with a stick as it crawled feebly up the side. There was no special malice in it at this treatment. Dragon seemed to know perfectly that he was born heir to a breakfast upon some of his tormentors, or their near relatives, and that the fun would be one day quite the other side of his mouth, into which our young friends thrust sticks and stones, not perceiving, the innocents' that they were simply rehearsing their own fate. The Howadji wished to sacrifice it to Osiris as they stepped ashore upon his island, but reflected that it