Under a pavilion of cloth of gold and priceless tissues, upon a couch, gorgeous with costliest draperies, in picturesque repose, yet studied attitude of queenliest grace and goddess-like abandon, appeared a form and face most radiantly fair and bountifully beautiful; though orientally voluptuous yet exquisitely attractive; seemingly divine, like some heavenly goddess; and yet, in truth, so like a human woman, with warm, soft flesh and tender eyes, and deep, rich heart’s blood thrilling through every vein, e’en to the end of her fair, tapering finger-tips. This radiant being was attired as Venus, Goddess of Beauty; and around her stood young pretty boys, decked out as Cupids, rosy-tinted, and with soft white wings expanded; and they gently fanned her glowing cheeks with feathers, odorous with most intoxicating perfumes; while lovely maidens, costumed as mermaids, plied the silver oars in unison with the notes struck from the lyres of gayly decorated nymphs; while charming muses and bewitching graces with rosy lips caressed the silver flutes, or clasped with jewelled fingers the golden cymbals. It was indeed a vision of enchantment. Whence came these radiant beings? Had the great goddess, in truth, descended from high Olympus, attended by her heavenly train? or did fair Isis, the queen of Egypt,—worshipped both as deity and nature,—thus clothe herself with mortal likeness, and deign to become visible to mortal eyes? Thus questioned the people, and pondered of the meaning of this o’erwhelming scene of gorgeous majesty and irresistible loveliness, according as their beliefs partook of Grecian mythology or Egyptian lore. Such was the scene of Cleopatra’s sail in her magnificent barge, up the river Cydnus to the city of Tarsus. That we may understand more clearly the life of this famous queen, we must turn back the pages of Egyptian history. Nor can we stop there. To clearly define her origin, the fair land of Greece must also be visited; and the gorgeous pageants of Rome, at the time of her greatest glory, have a place in the story of this illustrious Queen of Egypt, Daughter of Greece, Magic Sorceress of the Nile. Would that we could think of the fascinating Cleopatra only as this vision of perfect loveliness which she presents in this enchanting scene upon the river Cydnus; but there are dark and bloody deeds and savage barbarities and revolting vices, which loom up in the background of this fair picture, with huge and horrid forms, and make the telling of Cleopatra’s story, fascinating as it is in some respects, often an unpleasant recital of vice and crime, even though we endeavor to touch these dark shadows ever so lightly. For as we write of history, not of fiction, we cannot always avoid these hideous facts.