petrified forest, or to the City of the Sun. And then, again, four or
five times a month the house is filled with young aspirants going out
to India, male and female, full of valour and bloom; or with others
coming home, no longer young, no longer aspiring, but laden with
children and grievances.

The party with whom we are at present concerned is not about to proceed
further than the Pyramids, and we shall be able to go with them and
return in one and the same day.

It consisted chiefly of an English family, Mr. and Mrs. Damer, their
daughter, and two young sons;--of these chiefly, because they were the
nucleus to which the others had attached themselves as adherents; they
had originated the journey, and in the whole management of it Mr. Damer
retarded himself as the master.

The adherents were, firstly, M. Delabordeau, a Frenchman, now resident
in Cairo, who had given out that he was in some way concerned in the
canal about to be made between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. In
discussion on this subject he had become acquainted with Mr. Damer; and
although the latter gentleman, true to English interests, perpetually
declared that the canal would never be made, and thus irritated M.
Delabordeau not a little--nevertheless, some measure of friendship had
grown up between them.

There was also an American gentleman, Mr. Jefferson Ingram, who was
comprising all countries and all nations in one grand tour, as American
gentlemen so often do. He was young and good-looking, and had made
himself especially agreeable to Mr. Damer, who had declared, more than
once, that Mr. Ingram was by far the most rational American he had ever