and seem to have lost all fear of their natural enemies, men, animals, smoke, and noise, in their furious wish to fill their stomachs, and in the feeling of their immense number. The most wonderful thing, in my estimation, is their flight over the naked wilderness and the instinct which has guided them from some oasis over the inhospitable desert to the fat soil of the Nile vale. Fourteen years ago, it seems, this Egyptian plague last visited Egypt with the same force. The popular idea is, that they are sent by the comet which we have observed for twelve days in the south-west, and which, as it is now no longer obscured by the rays of the moon, stretches forth its stately tail across the heavens in the hours of night. The zodiacal light, too, so seldom seen in the north, has lately been visible for several nights in succession. At this place have I first been able to settle my account with Gizeh, and to put together the historical results of the investigation. I have every reason to rejoice at the consequences; the fourth and fifth dynasties are completed all except one king. I have just received the rather illegible drawing of a stone in a wall at the village of Abusir, which presents a row of kings of the fourth and fifth dynasties, and, as it would seem, in chronological order. I am on the point of riding over to see the original. LETTER VIII. SAQÂRA. _April 13, 1843._ I hasten to inform you of an event which I should not like to be first communicated to you from other quarters, and perhaps with distorted exaggeration. Our camp was attacked and robbed a few nights since by an armed band, but none of our party have been seriously hurt, and nothing has been lost that is not to be replaced. The matter is past, and the consequences can only be favourable to us; but I must first go back a few days in my report.