This experience of travel sharpened her appetite for adventure. It was a time when the minds of men were much occupied with the subject of African exploration, and we need not wonder, therefore, that it attracted the attention of Alexina Tinne. She appears to have been by nature of a romantic temperament, with an imagination as lively as her spirit was undaunted. At Palmyra she had dreamed of a career which should emulate that of Zenobia. In the Lebanon she had a vision of installing herself as successor to Lady Hester Stanhope. And now she conceived the idea of competing for the suffrages of posterity with Burton and Livingstone, Speke and Baker. To some extent she was influenced, perhaps, by the wide-spread reputation of Mrs. Petherick, the wife of the English consul at Khartum; but no doubt her main desire was to solve the great enigma of the Nilitic sphinx, and show that a woman could succeed where men had failed. What an immortality of fame would be hers if she prevailed over every obstacle and difficulty, and penetrated, as no European yet had done, to the remote source, the parent fountain of the waters of Egypt's great historic river! It must be owned that, if this were her ambition, there was nothing mean or unworthy in it. She set out on the 9th of January, 1862, still accompanied by her mother and her aunt, over whom her resolute nature exercised an undisputed ascendancy, voyaging in their boats, which carried a large stock of provisions, an ample supply of money, chiefly in copper, and a numerous train of guides, guards, and servants. In the largest and most commodious dahabuyah went the three ladies, with a Syrian cook and four European servants. Alexina's journal, it is said, preserves many curious details in unconscious illustration of the mixed character of this expedition, which might almost have been that of a new Cleopatra going to meet a new Mark Antony; we see the beauty there as well as the heroine; the handsome woman, mindful of her toilette appliances, as well as the courageous explorer, athirst for knowledge. * * * * * Passing in safety the first cataract, Miss Tinne's flotilla reached Korosko, where she and her companions took temporary leave of the Nile, of tourists, and civilization, and stuck across the sandy wastes of Korosko to Abu-Hammed, in order to avoid the wide curve which the river makes to the eastward. The caravan, besides Miss Tinne's domestics, included six guides and twenty-five armed men; while a hundred and ten camels and dromedaries were loaded with stores and provisions. The desert did not prove so dreary as it had been painted; sand and rock were frequently relieved by stretches of gracious verdure. The monotony of the plains was often broken by ranges of undulating hills. Every evening the camels found an ample supply of pasturage, and could quench their thirst freely in the basins of water that sparkled in the hollows of the rocks.