A few minutes more of such trial, and I must have avowed my imposture. But the holy man saw my embarrassment;—and, whether mistaking it for awe, or knowing it to be ignorance, relieved me from my perplexity by, at once, changing the theme. Having gently awakened his antelope from its sleep, “You have heard,” he said, “I doubt not, of my brother‐anchoret, Paul, who, from his cave in the marble mountains, near the Red Sea, sends hourly ‘the sacrifice of thanksgiving’ to heaven. Of _his_ walks, they tell me, a lion is the companion; but, for me,” he added, with a playful and significant smile, “who try my powers of taming but on the gentler animals, this feeble child of the desert is a far fitter play‐mate.” Then, taking his staff, and putting the time‐worn volume which he had been reading into a large goat‐skin pouch, that hung by his side, “I will now,” said he, “lead thee over my rocky kingdom,—that thou mayst see in what drear and barren places, that ‘fruit of the spirit,’ Peace, may be gathered.” To speak of peace to a heart like mine, at that moment, was like talking of some distant harbour to the mariner sinking at sea. In vain did I look round for some sign of Alethe;—in vain make an effort even to utter her name. Consciousness of my own deceit, as well as a fear of awakening in Melanius any suspicion that might frustrate my only hope, threw a fetter over my spirit and checked my tongue. In silence, therefore, I followed, while the cheerful old man, with slow, but firm, step, ascended the rock, by the same ladders which I had mounted on the preceding night. During the time when the Decian Persecution was raging, many Christians of this neighbourhood, he informed me, had taken refuge under his protection, in these grottos; and the chapel on the summit, where I had found them at prayer, was, in those times of danger, their place of retreat, where, by drawing up these ladders, they were enabled to secure themselves from pursuit. From the top of the rock, the view, on either side, embraced the two extremes of fertility and desolation; nor could the Epicurean and the Anchoret, who now gazed from that height, be at any loss to indulge their respective tastes, between the living luxuriance of the world on one side, and the dead repose of the desert on the other. When we turned to the river, what a picture of animation presented itself! Near us, to the south, were the graceful colonnades of Antinoë, its proud, populous streets, and triumphal monuments. On the opposite shore, rich plains, teeming with cultivation to the water’s edge, offered up, as from verdant altars, their fruits to the sun; while, beneath us, the Nile, ——the glorious stream, That late between its banks was seen to glide,— With shrines and marble cities, on each side, Glittering, like jewels strung along a chain,— Had now sent forth its waters, and o’er plain And valley, like a giant from his bed Rising with outstretch’d limbs, superbly spread.