seeks the sleep that He gives His beloved! No better prayer can we pray for her in the sudden anguish of contrast that seizes upon us; there is no more to be said. Now the bright procession gleams along the encumbered lines, half lost in opening gulfs of crowd-now the wild Celtic pibroch wakes an alien echo-now the brilliant tide pours forward, every man a name for history, every figure pointed out to eager bystanders, and gazed at like a miracle. Oh, absent Queen! not a gazer there but in the depths of his heart yearns and is troubled for you. When the Duke of Cambridge had taken his place with his brilliant retinue, the fair Saxon FrederickWilliam on one hand, the dark Swedish-French Oscar, impersonations of their different races, on the other, the ceremony proceeded. Music as fresh as the inspiration of to-day, but as perfect as if the practice of years had breathed skill into the fingers of every performer-music, which was trusted to no accident like the building, but committed to the worthiest hands, and framed for the special purpose-gave a heart and centre to the ceremonial. Nothing could be more perfect than the execution, and nothing more respectfully attentive than the crowd, which was not, however, moved by any evident thrill of emotion or sensation, but received the performance calmly, without apparent enthusiasm. After giving devout audience to the compositions of MM. Auber and Meyerbeer, it was, perhaps, scarcely to be expected that the Bishop of London should meet with equal attention, and his voice was audible to but a limited number; but when the splendid strain of the Hallelujah chorus burst into the air, filling, as it seemed, the entire building with that volume of grand harmony, all other sounds and commotions were swept into oblivion before the magnificent ascription of praise. It was the climax of all the day's proceedings the highest vocal expression yet discovered by man of that

which, in dim Latin and indifferent English, with a certain reticent, and sometimes rude, but unfailing national piety, is carved over half the buildings in England, and over and over again imprinted in vague sentences upon the walls of this special edifice-"The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!" Without evermore saying or singing this broadest of all fundamental truths, no English celebration could be complete. To say national piety, is perhaps too strong an expression; but nowhere does that stubborn sense of religion, which is sometimes to be found in utter disjunction from personal goodness, make itself more clearly apparent than in the universal acknowledgment,habitual to this country, of the supremacy of God. Though the crowd had already been standing throughout the prayer-which, considering that it was generally inaudible, seemed of rather excessive length

everybodycontinued to stand with tenacious steadiness through these twin choruses, both so solemn and splendid, which wound up the proceedings,-a double monarchy, in infinite gradation, but equally dutiful acknowledgment, which the English crowd confessed, as it always does, with uncovered head and attitude of reverence. God above who reigns over all; and here the Queen. Solemn confession of the heavenly monarch, blessing and prayers for the earthly-what more does any national ceremony demand? Having made it, the work was complete; and with a flourish and thrill of trumpets, startling the echoeswith a rustle of excitement and triumph in the crowd, and a fluctuating cheer, which eddied off down the nave and through the avenues wherever there was voice enough to catch it up, the second Great Exhibition was declared open, and the pageant of its first day came to an end.

When the brilliant mass broke up and poured forth over the buildingflowing, a tide of colour and animation, from dome to dome, appearing and disappearing on the higher

level, the Royal party did what every other person of sense will do on entering this Exhibition. They proceeded to the Picture Gallery. This Picture Gallery alone would be enough to give magnificence to the whole undertaking. Nothing like it has ever been seen in England. A long extent of well-lighted and not ill-proportioned rooms, where few pictures worth seeing can fail of finding a good place, and where the studious public may mark and note, not only the progress of art among ourselves during the last hundred years, but also the differences and contrasts between art in England and in other countries, is a boon to be gratefully accepted and prized. No former Exhibition, at least in England, has so much as attempted this worthy and valuable work. One can pass from Ward to Delaroche, and see them exchange countries in the catholic inspiration of genius; and one can learn a new and subtle phase of national difference and human likeness from the resemblances and contrasts on either side of the line which separates the genre pictures of England from those of France. Among the higher productions of religious art, there is perhaps nothing in our division of this great and splendid duel between the nations which could be fitly placed beside the Belgian picture of the young Christian asleep, with his rude wooden cross in his innocent hands, upon whom that Roman slave, with an indescribable stolid awe and immovable cruel compassion in his wonderful face, opens the doors which separate him from the crowded amphitheatre and the hungry lions; and certainly nothing on the other side, though theirs is the faith more used to pictorial expression, could stand for a moment

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by the Light of the World'-most divine in unutterable sadness of modern pictures. Class by class, and almost line by line, the student may learn those differences which are not to be described in words; while at the same time he traces back our own wholesome and vigorous school of painting into the tender graces of Reynolds and the dramatic genius of Hogarth. We have no space to enter into this most interesting examination; but whatever may be said of anything else under these domes, the Picture Gallery is glorious, -a collection worthy all the pains that have been expended in drawing it together-an unique and unparalleled effort for which we may well be grateful. Such an evidence of intercourse and friendship among the nations-such a means of giving knowledge of each other, and acquaintance with each other's individual merits-has perhaps a higher human value than any interchange of inventions or emulation in fabric and manufacture. The one perfects our domestic elegances and improves our apparel; the other conveys the familiar traits of our brother, who is a stranger, into our hearts.

This is the gem and glory of the new Exhibition-one with which the old Exhibition had absolutely nothing to compare. We stop short at this welcome point of superiority. The inevitable contrast, which is the first thing made by everybody on entering, is not to be spoken here; and in right of this, if of nothing else, we have a right to conclude the work successful which has collected a larger display of those things of beauty which are joys for ever, under one roof, even though that roof may have little in it either lovely or joyful, than any other attempt has ever yet succeeded in doing, or has even attempted to do.

AFTER a prolonged stay at Cairo, waiting the arrival of gunpowder, which had been shipped from England some months before, we were not able to effect a start until the last day of June 1861.

We had taken possession of a fine dahabyeh a fortnight previously, and had lived entirely on board. Three other boats were laden with baggage. We visited the glorious ruins of Thebes, Karnac, &c.; but these have been often described so eloquently and so graphically, that I refrain from paying my poor tribute to those magnificent relics of the past. In the course of three weeks we arrived at Assouan. Here is the first cataract, which is not passable except during the high Nile. We there left the boats, and proceeded on horseback to Shalat, some two miles distant, opposite the lovely island of Philæ; on it there are the ruins of an exquisite temple.

At Shalat we received the hospitality of the Roman Catholic mission, settled here most comfortably. They had abandoned their station at Gondokoro, and also their important one at Khartoum, so many of their followers having died. We went on board another dahabyeh, destitute of the comforts of the last. Miani, the Italian traveller, who reported he had reached a place called Guluffi, far in the interior of Africa, paid us a visit. He was on his way to Cairo direct from Khartoum, disappointed in his hope of

reaching Gondokoro, and continuing his researches, having been supplied with ample funds by the Egyptian Government to enable him to do so. His boat, he said, when at anchor opposite Khartoum, sprang a leak and went down, spoiling his goods, provisions, &c. &c. He was thus compelled to abandon, for the time at least, his expedition. Miani is a fine old man, of prepossessing appearance. He was dressed in the Turkish costume, but with a voluminous turban; his snowy beard descended low.

In two days we set sail for Korosko, and arrived at that place on the morning of the 1st of August. I had imagined it a town of some importance, and, while preparations were made for landing, looked out for a minaret or two; but I saw only a few mud houses. Our tents were soon pitched near some datepalms, and within two hundred yards of the river. Korosko is situated on the east bank of the Nile, on the confines of the Nubian or Aboo Hamad desert. On the opposite shore is the Lybian desert, a most uncomfortable, hot-looking plain. Shortly after our arrival the sheigh of the camelmen, appointed by the Government, paid us a visit; he was attended by three or four wild-looking Arabs. These men wore no covering on the head; their own luxuriant hair, plaited into a hundred little tails such as Topsy delighted in, formed a natural

shade that defied the sun's rays. Their only clothing consisted of a long piece of dingy calico worn round the loins. The Sheigh Achmed, a remarkably handsome man, wore an enormous white turban, a silk handkerchief of many colours lightly cast over it, a loose robe of blue calico, and capacious white Turkish trousers, and the red slippers of the country, turned up at the toes; he rode a knowing-looking donkey, almost covered by a bright long-haired goat-skin.

The salutations between Pethe rick and the Sheigh were so prolonged, the Arabs also participating, that I evinced a true womanly curiosity as to the meaning of such a demonstration, and heard, for the first time, that my husband was regarded as a benefactor of Korosko and of the desert tribes to Berber. I was told that in 1856 the present Viceroy of Egypt crossed the Nubian desert; and he was so convinced that the hardships were too great to be endured, that he ordered the route to be closed, knowing well that the way by Dongola was far more easy, as water there was always to be had, and the pasturage was in many places luxuriant. This closing the road presented serious obstacles to the Khartoumers; and Petherick, when on his way to England some time after, had an interview with his Highness the Viceroy. He urged upon him that, if both routes were accessible, travellers could choose between them, and that the people, whose existence depended upon the hire of their camels, and who were now suffering severely, would be relieved. The Viceroy in consequence revoked his decision, and Petherick was regarded as the means of his doing so.

The sheigh, greatly to our chagrin, said that, notwithstanding the letter he had received some time previously from Petherick, begging him to retain two hundred camels for the transport of our baggage, &c., he could only procure seventy; the dry season was so far advanced, and food was so difficult to be pro

cured, that the owners did not wish their beasts to be worked. Petherick at once determined to proceed, leaving the remaining baggage with an old and trustworthy servant, Mustapha, who had waited for many months our arrival at Cairo.

But when we proceeded to load the poor weak camels, nearly all the boxes were over-weight. This was a blow, as all those from whom goods had been purchased had been particularly requested not to allow any package to exceed two hundredweight. Truly is it said the last hair will break the camel's back: these animals refused to carry their loads; it might be only a few lb. more in some of the cases, in others far beyond this; but the result was the same. The consequence was, that as no carpenter was near, and the servants about us were ignorant of the use of a hammer, Petherick had to alter the cases himself. He went at it with a will, but the heat was terribly against him; daily at noon the chamseen, or simoom wind, blew for hours at intervals, carrying with it clouds of fine penetrating sand. I was soon aware of its freaks; and at its approach would envelop myself in a large white Algerian burnous, throw myself on the ground, and there remain until the gust was over.

On the 5th of August sufficient work had been executed to enable us to send off the seventy camels to Berber, where four of Petherick's boats had been waiting two months. We were obliged to remain at Korosko, so much was yet to be done to the boxes. We determined to make the best of a bad position, and got out a table and chairs for the tent, and sundry little comforts. The horses had come by land from Assouan; and it was arranged that daily, before the sun was up, we should give them fair exercise.

Living as it were in public, we could bear no sides put up to the tent. Though we slept always in the open air, not an intrusive glance

or step did we ever experience: no backsheesh was demanded: not a child even approached; all respected the privacy so desirable.

We had some fine fowls bought for slaughter, but they became pets during the river voyage, and thus escaped their intended doom. These fowls were the objects of nightly attack; foxes, wild-cats, dogs, in turn assailed their cage, placed high in a mimosa tree. Our pets' cry of distress sounded the alarm, and Petherick, who had always his gun at hand, and revolver pistols beneath his rug, would take aim; and on three consecutive nights shot an intruder. After this the visits became more rare.

The women of Korosko came daily to inspect the palm-trees; the dates were ripening rapidly, and promised an abundant harvest. These women, clad in loose flowing robes, barefooted, sometimes carrying a child astride their hip or shoulder, walk with inimitable grace.

One morning a boat left for Dongola bearing some rough-looking soldiers, who had remained at Korosko a night. Soon after their departure, a woman of the village came as usual to look to her trees; sundry bunches of dates were missed. Never shall I forget her superb attitudes-grand, because they were unstudied. She lifted on high her arms, from which the drapery fell back beautifully-moulded arms they were, encircled by ivory bracelets. For a brief moment she was silent, and then her tongue became vehement. She prayed that the robbers might be smitten by blindness because their eyes had regarded enviously the fruit that those who, knowing it stolen, ate of it, might be choked, and so on. From my heart I pitied the poor creature: all in the Egyptian land are so heavily taxed; every fruit-bearing tree has its impost; and no relief, if the crop fails, can be obtained. At a distance the hair of the women appeared to me arranged in natural curls-small ones over the forehead,

increasing in length at the back; but on inspection these supposed ringlets were plaits, so fine and numerous that it was with difficulty I made out the difference. All wear necklaces of beads or pebbles, and bracelets of ivory, stained sometimes into a pretty pattern: nearly all have cuts in their face, which they paint blue, and also their lips. The girl-children wore the rachat-a fringe of thinly-cut thongs of leather-round the loins; the boys were in nature's livery, and were young imps revelling in the dust, and similar pastimes. Food was so scarce, that had it not been for cases of preserved meats, &c., from Crosse and Blackwall's, we should have fared badly. There was but little game, and during our stay only a few doves were bagged: in the evenings, however, we had some success in fishing. The people use a spear attached to a long cord, and when a fish of large size is seen, they throw it with force, and generally capture it. We daily observed the rapid rising of the Nile: our landmarks were one by one swept away; and a little promontory on which the fishingrods were placed at sunset for our use, with rugs, a dragging net, &c., had disappeared one morning. The river had covered it.

The Egyptians and Arabs believe that at midnight, on the 17th of June, a blessed drop of dew falls from heaven, and from that moment the river increases. The night is kept as a festival; many pray in the mosques; the boats are bedecked with flags, firearms are discharged constantly, and the women along the banks yachareet wildly. When this drop was supposed to fall, we were in the dahabyeh off Boulac (old Cairo). The enthusiasm of our crew became almost frantic ; they sang, they beat drums, and fired the whole night. After this date the river changed its colour. It is first of a green hue, and in a fortnight it becomes reddish, very thick, and it is impossible to drink it with any feeling of satisfaction,