consulate are at least well known and of Arab respectability. At the latter end of April, long before daybreak, the party quitted the _Hotel d’Orient_, mounted on donkeys, to join the camels at El Khanka. At the hour of departure, Mr Lascelles Hamilton was no where to be found; but a waiter, roused from sleep, at last informed the travellers that he had left word that he would join them on the road. This event rather discomposed Sidney, who feared that the son of the Indian general of cavalry, in spite of his agreeable manners, universal knowledge, and incessant volubility, might have opened communications with Mohammed Ali to cut off the retreat of Aali. It was certain that all Mr Lascelles Hamilton said could not be received according to the letter, or it would be difficult to understand why he was not governor-general of India, or at least ambassador at St Petersburg. The camels were found at El Khanka, kneeling on the verge of the desert, near the mosque, at the entrance of the place. The donkeys and the donkey-boys were here dismissed, and the party soon moved onward with the slow monotonous and silent motion of a fleet of desert ships. The baggage, the dragomans, and the singular Mr Lascelles Hamilton, had proceeded to Belbeis to prepare the tents and refreshments; but Aali was found at Khanka, waiting to join Sidney, as the report had been left at Cairo that he was going to Jerusalem as his travelling companion. The difficulties and dangers of the flight of the fair Fatmeh were now to commence, and Sidney felt that he might be embarked in a perilous enterprise. The plan concerted with Aali was this. Sheikh Salem had sent forward his wife and daughter in a takterwan, or camel-sedan, to Belbeis. Fresh dromedaries were to be found there for the whole party, with which it was proposed to reach Saba Biar in a single day, where horses were to be in waiting. In the mean time it had been announced at Cairo that the whole party was to take the route by Salahieh, and the camels had been hired for that road. The shades of evening were falling over the renowned city of Belbeis as our travellers approached. High mounds, crowned by dusky walls, set in a frame of waving palm-trees, gave the landscape a splendid colouring; but even the obscurity could not veil the fact that the once renowned city had shrunk into a collection of filthy huts, huddled together on mountains of rubbish. The tents were found pitched to the north-east of the city, and the camp presented a most orderly appearance. The three tents of the travellers were ranged in a line--the magnificent tent of Mr Ringlady in the centre; behind, stood the cooking tents, and in a semicircle in the rear, the kneeling camels were disposed in groups, side by side. The whole arrangement testified the spirit of order Achmet had imbibed with his Indian education at Bombay. At a short distance to the north, the _takterwan_ of the ladies was seen with a large caravan of dromedaries.