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THE CITY OF CAIRO. — EGYPT. 273
with a weird, gaseous brightness. The streets and lanes,
fringed for miles with flags, banners, and costly tapestry
and transparencies, were literally thronged with carriages and
giddily-gaping multitudes, some in rags, some in silks and
satins, and others in the gilded trappings of state. Seen
externally, it was a most magnificent pageant. Considered
spiritually, it was the quintessence of babyish folly, — the
glittering pampering so pleasing to vain royalty. This half
million, worse than squandered, should have been spent
in educating ignorant subjects, freeing the country from
slavery, and feeding the wretched street-beggars.
Disgusted with the confusion, the wild excitement, and
the sham of the show, I returned to my apartment to
meditate.
Is it a dream ? or am I really in Egypt, the country of
Hermes, Trismegistus, and Menes the founder of Memphis ?
Am I in the land of ancient symbolical art, of hieroglyphs,
obelisks, pyramids, and paintings, of monoliths, sarcophagi,
and templed tombs? Changed, oh, how changed during
the devastating decades of two, three, and five thousand
years ! The sacred Nile still moves on in silent majesty
but no wandering Isis weeps, searching for the
dead Osiris.
The shadow of Typhon's frown falls no more upon the
tremulous waves of this great rolling river. The lips of
iMemnon, touched, smitten even by rising sunbeams, remain
voiceless as the sphinx that gazes coldly out upon the vast
granary-valley of Egypt. Cleopatra and the kingly Ptolemies
are only dimly, dreamily remembered ; but those marvels
of towering masonry, those pillared Pyramids^ though
stripped of their marble casings, continue to stand in peerless
grandeur, the wonder of the races, the riddle of the
ages!
THE KHEDIVE AND HIS PURPOSES.
Ismael Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, formerly resided in a
magnificent palace on the Bosphorus, surrounded by lawns
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