8 TWO YEAES IN^ THE JUKGLE. 



benefit of the general public, and is bountifully filled with interest^ 

 ing marine animals of many kinds, such as cephalopods, medus:e 

 in all their delicate and filmy beauty, live corals, sponges, sharks, 

 rays, crabs, lobsters, fishes, and turtles in great variety and pro- 

 fusion, A walk thi'ough the aquarium is like taking a stroll 

 under the sea and becoming personally acquainted with its inhab- 

 itants. The water supply comes directly from the bay, and the 

 denizens of the commodious tanks seem quite at home in the pretty 

 bits of sea-bottom that have been transferred hither for them. 



The upper story of the station is, to the gaping crowd, a sealed 

 book, and " shall fools rush in where angels fear to tread ? " By 

 no means ; hence I did not attempt to penetrate the inner temple 

 where Dr. Dohrn and his investigators have their "tables," and 

 prosecute their divings after the unfathomable, and gi-aspings for 

 the unknowable. 



But all too soon the time came for us to move on ; and, in 

 obedience to the summons, we shipped home sixteen cases of speci- 

 mens and sailed for Egypt. 



At sunrise of the fifth day out, a long, low stretch of baiTen 

 sand all along the south betokened our approach to the land of 

 deserts. At eight o'clock Pompey's pillar loomed up from its hill- 

 top behind the city, gi-aceful, prominent, and shai-ply outlined 

 against the clear eastern sky, and we steamed around the end of 

 the breakwater into the harbor of Alexandria. This city is the 

 gateway to all Egypt, and we found its harbor filled with the ships 

 of many nations, among which we counted nineteen large steamei's. 



To my mind, there is absolutely nothing attractive about Alex- 

 andria, and but for the European quarter, the Place des Consuls, 

 the city would be intolerable, even for a day. The only good 

 things that can be said about it are, that the city is of great com- 

 mercial importance to Egj'pt, and is the starting-point for Cairo. 

 "We visited Pompey's pillar and the Khedive's gardens, but to reach 

 them we had to drive through such filthy streets, and past so many 

 (lens of wretchedness, that the charm of sight-seeing was utterly 

 lost. We saw sights we had in no ■wise bargained for. It seems to 

 me that Alexandria is the dirtiest city I ever saw, and it certainly 

 smells worse than Naples. No wonder that fevers are prevalent, or 

 that the plague always breaks out here prior to its appearance in 

 any other part of Egypt. 



The ride from Alexandria to Cairo, one hundred and thirty-one 

 miles by rail, is full of interest. Leaving behind us the slums of 



