4 EAMBLES OF A NATUEALIST. [Oh. I. 



necessitated to follow behind, would hardly, I think, account 

 for the regularity of the figure, which is maintained until it 

 faints into the tenuity of a spider's thread in the distance. 

 His theory is, indeed, no improvement upon that of Cicero,* 

 who, being an augur, studied the flight of birds, and sup- 

 posed that when migrating in large bodies, they assumed the 

 >- form from an intuitive knowledge that it offers less 

 resistance to their rapid flight— while one, probably a strong- 

 pinioned bird, is selected by them as their leader ; though 

 it is probable that this one, in turn, gives place to others 

 during their progress. 



The first sight of the shores of the Nile Delta is by no 

 means striking, though just what a consideration of its nature 

 would lead one to expect. A long low coast, terminating in 

 sand-hills, is presented to, view, whose monotony is only 

 broken by distant and somewhat formal rows of date-palms, 

 interspersed with windmills. But here, as we land at 

 Alexandria, our first dissolving view fairly gives place to a 

 totally new picture, in which the colours of the kaleidoscope 

 play a conspicuous part. We seem at once plunged into the 

 embodiment of the dreams of those days when we read of 

 Aladdin, The Three Calenders, and Haroun-al-Easchid. 

 Streets narrow and winding — shops open to the street, and 

 without windows of any kind — merchandise piled up around 

 the owner, who sat cross-legged upon the counter, smoking 

 his pipe and awaiting custom — barbers shaving their cus- 

 tomers in public — divans, where Arabs were sipping coffee 

 meditatively — bakers and provision-merchants with wares 

 anything but tempting to a European — and Nubians, as 

 black as jet, carrying water-skins, of which the outsides were 

 sufiiciently disgusting objects. Passing to and fro through 

 * Cicero, de Natnrfl Deorum, lib. ii. cap. 49. 



