On this “trip,” as Waghorn calls it, so extraordinarily rapid was the first part of his journey, _viz._ to Trieste (accomplished in nine days and a half, through five kingdoms) that an enquiry was instituted by the Foreign Office respecting it; for at this time our Post Office Letters occupied fourteen days in reaching that place. Yet Waghorn had been obliged to travel upwards of one hundred and thirty miles out of his direct way, in consequence of broken bridges, falling avalanches, and the disabling of a steamer. Instantly enquiring for the quickest means of getting on to Alexandria, he was informed that an Austrian brig had sailed only the evening before, and having had calms and light airs all night, she was still in sight from the tops of the hills. Away he dashed in a fresh posting carriage, because if he could reach Pesano, through Capo D’Istria, twenty miles down the eastern side of the Gulf of Venice, before the Austrian vessel had passed, he might embark from this port as passenger for Alexandria. On reaching Pesano, he could still distinguish the vessel, and he accordingly strove to increase the rapidity of his chase to the utmost. He got within three miles of the vessel. At this juncture a strong northerly wind sprang up, and carrying her forward on her course, she was presently lost to sight. Exhausted in body, and “racked,” as he says, by disappointment after the previous excitement, he returned to Trieste. Ascertaining that the next opportunity of getting to Alexandria would be by a Spanish ship, which was now taking in her cargo in the quarantine ground, he instantly hastened there. The captain informed him that he could not possibly sail in less than three days, and required one hundred dollars for the passage. Waghorn directly offered him one hundred and fifty dollars if he would sail in eight-and-forty hours. Whereupon the captain found that it _was_ just possible to do so; and he kept his word. “After a tedious passage of sixteen days,” says Waghorn, to whom every hour that did not fly was no doubt tedious, “I arrived at Alexandria, but hearing that Mr. Barker, who held the combined offices of Consul General in Egypt, and agent to the Honourable East India Company, was at his country-house at Rosetta, I hired donkeys, and was on my way for it after five hours’ stay at Alexandria.” One ludicrous characteristic of the Alexandrian donkeys is worth recording. Never in future can we regard the epithet of “an ass,” as being properly synonymous with stupidity. The creatures ambled and trotted along very well during the first day; but on the subsequent morning, when they clearly perceived that a long journey was before them, they fell down intentionally four or five times, with all the signs of fatigue and weakness. The drivers informed him that it was a common practice of the donkeys.