left it, there were two young Arnaouts thundering at the door, and, as they threatened to break it open and shoot the porter, they were of course admitted. On leaving the town, we found a large party of these "free companions" seated round a camp fire, shouting, singing, smoking, and discharging fire-arms, whose bullets whistled about us more freely than was agreeable. There was something very picturesque, after all, about these ruffians, and I could not help lingering to contemplate this picture of human nature in its fearfullest form. Their lives are one succession of the wildest excitement; yet over all lay, perhaps unconsciously, the influence of that discipline, such as it was, that was now sending them unresistedly to encounter pestilence and privation in the depths of Africa. There were some very youthful, and even noble, countenances among their crew, and their dress is the most picturesque possible. A red tarboosh, with a purple silk tassel, covers their long flowing locks that stream down the shoulders like those of the Cavaliers; an embroidered jacket of scarlet, or dark blue cloth; a very voluminous white kilt, reaching to the knee; greaves, or a sort of embroidered gaiters, upon their legs, and red slippers, constitute their dress. A brace of long pistols and a dagger are stuck in a large silken sash that girds their bodies; a long silver-mounted musket is slung at their backs, and a curved sabre at their side. They have by-laws peculiar to their regiment, and they frequently shoot their officers, electing others in their stead; when they went so far as to shoot their colonel, Mehemet Ali decimated them, and gave them a more severe commander; this having happened once or twice, they left off the practice. It may be supposed that troops like these are little adapted for garrison duty; and it was in consequence of their lawlessness, and the complaints made against them by Europeans, that Mehemet Ali had sent them away to die. When we reached our boat, we found all the crew, generally so anxious to rush into every town, cowering under the decks. We sailed at sunset, and shall never see the Esnéan Sophia ! As, however, we saw numerous Almé elsewhere, I may as well introduce some account of them here. The term Almé, or, in the plural, Awálim, means literally, 66 a learned female."* This epithet is only strictly applied to the singing women, whose music is sometimes of a very high order, and their accomplishments in other respects so numerous, that they frequently obtain fifty guineas from a party for their exhibitions on one evening. The dancing girls belong to a very inferior order, and are termed Gawázee in the language of the country. These women used to have a settlement near Cairo, and attended all the marriage and other festivities of the beau monde there. The Moollahs, or Moslem divines, however, objected to them; not on account of their impropriety, but on the plea that the profane eyes of the "Infidel" ought not to gaze upon women of the true faith. There was such an agitation raised on this subject, that the priests prevailed, and all the Almé were sent, by way of banishment, to Esneh, five hundred miles up the river, where they are allowed a small stipend by government to keep them from starvation. This reformation in the capital produced frightful results which I cannot allude to here, and Alméism still flourishes everywhere outside of the Cairene district. Sophia is said to be the leader of this tribe, who have laws, finance regulations, and peculiar blood among themselves, like the Gypsies. She was for some time in Abbas Pasha's hareem, whence she escaped, and, after many romantic vicissitudes, obtained immunity and freedom from Mehemet Ali. She is now twenty-five years old, which is equivalent to at least fifty in our own country; yet she preserves her beauty of face and form almost undiminished, and even her agility and grace. The dance is the same with which their predecessors entertained the Pharaohs four thousand years ago, and almost every attitude we see here now is found upon the ancient tombs. It is an exercise rather of posture and acting, than of agility, and requires long practice and considerable art to arrive at perfection. The professional dress is very picturesque and graceful, consisting of a short embroidered jacket fitting close, but open in front, long loose trousers of almost transparent silk, a cashmere shawl, wrapped round the loins, rather than the waist; and light elegant turbans of muslin, embroidered with gold * Lane. The hair flows in dark curls down the shoulders, and glitters with small gold coins; their eyes are deeply but delicately painted with kohl, which gives them a very languishing expression, and a profusion of showy ornaments glitter on their unveiled bosoms. When about to commence the oriental ballet, the Almé exchanges this for a yet lighter dress, throws off her slippers, and advances to the centre of the room with a slow step and undulating form, that keeps accurate time to the music of the reedpipe, and the castanets on which she is accompanied by her attendants. She then, after a glance round upon her audience, throws herself at once and entirely into the part she intends to act; be it pensive, gay, or tragic, she seems to know no feeling but that of the passion she represents. In some cases, a whole romance is acted; an Arab girl, for instance, she listens at the door of her tent for the sound of her lover's horse, she chides his delay; he comes, she expresses her delight; he sinks to sleep, she watches over, and dances round him; he departs, she is overwhelmed with grief. Generally the representation is more simple; the "Wasp dance" is a favorite ballet of the latter class: the actress is standing musing in a pensive posture, when a wasp is supposed to fly into her bosom-her girdle-all about her; the music becomes rapid; she flies about in terror, darting her hand in pursuit of the insect, till she finds it was all a mistake; then smiling, she expresses her pleasure and her relief in dance. These dances are certainly not adapted for public exhibition in England, and would be considered as too expressive even at the Opera; but they display exquisite art in their fashion, and would surprise. if not please, the most fastidious critic of the coulisses. CHAPTER XXVIII. THEBES. Then came they forth, from that which now might seem With imagery beautiful as dreams, They went, and left the shades which tend on sleep, Their silent watch. Then there came temples, such as mortal hand Reared in the cities of enchanted land. SHELLEY: Revolt of Islam. We had scarcely reached our boat when we saw the governor of Esneh coming after us; he entreated us to drop down the river to a little distance, and then resigned himself to the delights of his pipe and our Maraschino. He said the English were the most ingenious people in the world to make such liquor (which, he thought, was brewed in London like Double X), and that the people who built Thebes were fools compared to the men who could make a drink like this. He stayed with us for about an hour,—to our great inconvenience; and then departed with a bottle in his janissary's hand, and another within his own capacious girdle, that made him for the time indifferent to all the Arnaouts of Albania. We were now en route for mighty Thebes, and grudged even the hour that was devoted to an inspection of the beautiful tem. ple of Herment, or Hermonthis. This was built by Cleopatra, in honor of her having given birth to Cæsarion. It is richly adorned with painting and sculpture, containing every possible illustration of the "interesting event "it commemorates. Mehemet Ali has used this beautiful building as a granary, for some time; and its columns and entablatures have been forced into the more active service of life, in the shape of bridges and piers, in the same spirit in which the Pasha converted the indolent dervishes into soldiers. We moored off Gournou, on the eastern bank of the river, towards evening, leaving the opposite side, with Luxor and Karnak, for the last. We were soon in the saddle, and, preceded by an Arab guide with a long spear, went cantering over the level plains, luxuriant with corn-fields, to the temple of Ammon, the Theban Jupiter: this building is about a mile from the river, and contained the Hall of Assembly of ancient Thebes. How curious it was, standing among those silent courts, to speculate on the species of eloquence which charmed, or persuaded the listening crowds of three thousand years ago! There was party spirit even then, no doubt, and place-hunting; where that spirit now is, who shall presume to say? but permanent places for the patriots have long since been found in the vast cemeteries that surround us. The front of this building is very perfect, and imposing, from its simplicity and vast extent. Evening fell as we stood there; obscurity, like that which wraps its records, gathered round it, and we rode back to our tent by the light of stars, which scarcely enabled us to keep clear of the mummy-pits with which the plain was honeycombed. The next morning, at daybreak, we started for the Tombs of the Kings. I was mounted on a fine horse belonging to the sheikh of the village; and the cool air of the morning, the rich prospect before us, and cloudless sky, all conspired to impart life and pleasure to our relaxed and languid frames. I had been for nearly a month confined to my pallet by illness; and now, mounted on a gallant barb, sweeping across the desert, with the mountain breezes breathing round me, I felt a glow of spirits and an exhilaration of mind and body, to which I had been long a stranger. For a couple of hours we continued along the plain, which was partially covered with wavy corn, but flecked widely, here and there, with desert tracts. Then we entered the gloomy mountain gorges, through which the Theban monarchs passed to their tombs. Our path lay through a narrow defile, between precipitous cliffs of rubble and calcareous strata, and some large boulders of coarse conglomerate lay strewn along this desolate valley, in which no living thing of |