In a few moments we had reached the mouth of the ravine, of which the Mountain of the Birds forms one of the sides, and through which the scanty canal from the Nile flows. At the sight of this chasm, in some of whose gloomy recesses—if we had rightly interpreted the leaf—the dwelling of the Solitary lay, our voices, at once, sunk into a low whisper, while Alethe looked round upon me with a superstitious fearfulness, as if doubtful whether I had not already disappeared from her side. A quick movement, however, of her hand towards the ravine, told too plainly that her purpose was still unchanged. With my oars, therefore, checking the career of our boat, I succeeded, after no small exertion, in turning it out of the current of the river, and steering into this bleak and stagnant canal. Our transition from life and bloom to the very depth of desolation, was immediate. While the water and one side of the ravine lay buried in shadow, the white, skeleton‐like crags of the other stood aloft in the pale glare of moonlight. The sluggish stream through which we moved, yielded sullenly to the oar, and the shriek of a few water‐birds, which we had roused from their fastnesses, was succeeded by a silence, so dead and awful, that our lips seemed afraid to disturb it by a breath; and half‐ whispered exclamations, “How dreary!”—“How dismal!”—were almost the only words exchanged between us. We had proceeded for some time through this gloomy defile, when, at a distance before us, among the rocks on which the moonlight fell, we perceived, upon a ledge but little elevated above the canal, a small hut or cave, which, from a tree or two planted around it, had some appearance of being the abode of a human being. “This, then,” thought I, “is the home to which Alethe is destined!”—A chill of despair came again over my heart, and the oars, as I gazed, lay motionless in my hands. I found Alethe, too, whose eyes had caught the same object, drawing closer to my side than she had yet ventured. Laying her hand agitatedly upon mine, “We must here,” she said, “part for ever.” I turned to her, as she spoke: there was a tenderness, a despondency in her countenance, that at once saddened and inflamed my soul. “Part!” I exclaimed passionately,—“No!—the same God shall receive us both. Thy faith, Alethe, shall, from this hour, be mine, and I will live and die in this desert with thee!”