the command of the Mediterranean.

[Footnote 1: In the "Battle of the Nile."]

After the monotony of a sea voyage, landing at Port Said is amusing.
The steamer anchors in mid-stream, and is quickly surrounded by gaily
painted shore boats, whose swarthy occupants--half native, half
Levantine--clamber on board, and clamour and wrangle for the
possession of your baggage. They are noisy fellows, but once your
boatman is selected, landing at the little stages which lie in the
harbour is quickly effected, and you and your belongings are safely
deposited at the station, and your journey to Cairo begun.

Port Said is a rambling town, whose half brick, half timber buildings
have a general air of dilapidation and unfinish which is depressing.
The somewhat picturesque principal bazaar street is soon exhausted,
and excepting for the imposing offices of the Suez Canal Company, and
the fine statue to De Lesseps, recently erected on the breakwater,
Port Said has little else to excite the curiosity of the visitors;
built upon a mud-bank formed of Suez Canal dredgings, its existence is
its most interesting feature, and the white breakers of the
Mediterranean, above which it is so little raised, seem ever ready to
engulf it as they toss and tumble upon its narrow beach.

Leaving Port Said behind, the train travels slowly along the canal
bank, and we begin to enter Egypt.

On the right the quiet waters of Lake Menzala, fringed with tall reeds
and eucalyptus trees, stretches to the far horizon, where quaintly
shaped fishing-boats disappear with their cargoes towards distant