6 EAMBLES OF A NATUEALIST. [Oh. I. 



were Arabs equally squalid and wretched-looking, the children 

 cased in dirt, wearing a single scanty and dirty garment, with 

 eyes more or less affected with ophthalmia, and holding out 

 their hands for backsheesh as we passed. Villainous-looking 

 dogs, like gaunt jackals, lurked about the huts, and luxuriant 

 cacti flourished in some of the gardens. Large kingfishers 

 hovered over the ponds, and handsome black and white stork- 

 like birds stood motionless like sentinels by the side of 

 canals — buzzard-like hawks flew familiarly about, and occa- 

 sionally swooped down almost among the people collected 

 at a station — crows, and plovers, and sparrows, were 

 Mot uncommon, particularly the last, probably, however, 

 not our domestic species, but the tree sparrow (Passer 

 montanus). 



As the sun went down, the zodiacal light appeared very 

 distinctly ; and for several nights I remarked it as we passed 

 down the Eed Sea, much more clearly than I had ever 

 observed it in England. Conspicuously upon our right 

 hand shone out the Egyptian star, Canopus, never visible in 

 this latitude ; but whose first sight roused associations in 

 unison with the classic locality we were traversing, — for at 

 sunset we had crossed a branch of the Nile. 



The glimpse afforded by a ride through Cau-o did not 

 differ essentially from that described at Alexandria ; but the 

 city is far more interesting and remarkable; the streets 

 more narrow and mazy, ornamented with ai-abesques and 

 frescos ; minarets and domes meet one at every turn, while 

 the people seemed even more essentially Eastern than in 

 the commercial town of Alexandria. Giving my ass his 

 reins I diverged from my party, and let the beast take me 

 where he would, trusting to his instinct to lead me finally 

 aright; and thus unencumbered, I could gaze at my ease 



