Restored to health in 1845, she removed to Ambleside, among the lakes and mountains, settling in the immediate neighbourhood of the poet Wordsworth. In the autumn she published her "Forest and Game Laws"; and in the following year she made a journey to the East, and ascended the river Nile, recording her experiences in the book which has led us to introduce her among our female travellers--"Eastern Life, Past and Present," a remarkable book, giving a fresh interest to the beaten track of Eastern travel and research, and breathing vitality into the dry bones of Champollini, Wilkinson, and Lane. Putting aside its crude notions of Egyptology, and its wild speculations on religious topics, we must be prepared to admire its fresh and finely-coloured word pictures, the glow and power of which are surprising. Miss Martineau went up the Nile to Philae; she afterwards crossed the desert to the Red Sea, landed in Arabia, and ascended Mounts Sinai and Horeb; and, finally, explored a portion of the shores and islands of the Mediterranean. We must pause in our rapid narrative to give a specimen or two of the sketches she made on the way; they will show how a strong and vivid genius can deal with the incidents of travel, and what a record of it may become in the hands of a skilful and accomplished artist. Let us take her description of the Sphinx--the Sphinx that for some thousands of years has held mute companionship with the Great Pyramids:-- "The full serene gaze of its round face, rendered ugly by the loss of the nose, which was a very handsome feature of the old Egyptian face--this full gaze, and the stony calm of its attitude almost turn one to stone. So life-like, so huge, so monstrous; it is really a fearful spectacle. I saw a man sitting in a fold of the neck--as a fly might settle on a horse's mane. In that crease he reposed, while far over his head extended the vast pent-house of the jaw; and above that, the dressed hair on either side the face--each bunch a mass of stone which might crush a dwelling-house. In its present state its proportions cannot be obtained; but Sir G. Wilkinson tells us, 'Pliny says it measured from the belly to the highest part of the head sixty-three feet; its length was one hundred and forty-three; and the circumference of its head round the forehead one hundred and two feet; all cut out in the natural rock, and worked smooth.' Fancy the long well-opened eyes, in such proportion as this--eyes which have gazed unwinking into vacancy, while mighty Pharaohs, and Hebrew law-givers, and Persian princes, and Greek philosophers, and Antony with Cleopatra by his side, and Christian anchorites, and Arab warriors, and European men of science, have been brought hither in succession by the unpausing ages to look up into those eyes--so full of meaning, though so fixed!"[39] * * * * *