beside those we are accustomed to see every day. On the whole,
however, I was better pleased with the garden at Rodda. The palace,
too, is very fine. The ceilings of the rooms are lofty, and richly
ornamented with gilding, paintings, and marble. The rooms
appropriated to the viceroy's consort are no less magnificent; the
ascent to them is by a broad staircase on each side. On the ground-
floor is situate the favourite apartment of the autocrat of Cairo,
furnished in the style of the reception-halls at Damascus. A
fountain of excellent water diffuses a delicious coolness around.
In the palace itself we find several large cages for parrots and
other beautiful birds. What pleased me most of all was, however,
the incomparable kiosk, lying in the garden at some distance from
the palace. It is 130 paces long and 100 broad, surrounded by
arcades of glorious pillars. This kiosk contains in its interior a
large and beautiful fountain; and at the four corners of the
building are terraces, from which the water falls in the form of
little cataracts, afterwards uniting with the fountain, and shooting
upwards in the shape of a mighty pillar. All things around us, the
pavilion and the pillars, the walls and the fountain, are alike
covered with beautiful marble of a white or light-brown colour; the
pavilion is even arranged so that it can be lighted with gas.

From this paradise of the living I rode to the abode of the dead,
the celebrated "world of graves," which is to be seen in the desert.
Here are to be found a number of ancient sepulchres, but most of
them resemble ruins, and to find out their boasted beauty is a thing
left to the imagination of every traveller. I only admired the
sepulchre of Mehemet Ali's two sons, in which the bones of his wife
also rest: this is a beautiful building of stone; five cupolas rise
above the magnificent chambers where the sarcophagi are deposited.