It was a memorable morning, that 18th of August, on which the sailing vessel was prepared to leave the roadstead. Many a curious eye, in those early hours, was strained to witness the sun, as its disk rose darkened by the shadow of an eclipse. Above the flood of the Erythræan Sea appeared a golden sickle, its crescent light bearing resemblance to the moon. We were detained for yet two days in the roadstead; but at last we weighed anchor, and the little craft soon vanished from the midst of its more imposing neighbours, the great mail ships and men-of-war, which gave such a bright animation to the anchorage. A refreshing breeze from the north-east carried us across the gulf. Ever deepening violet shadows covered the shore, until the obscurity of night had completely hidden Mount St. Catherine and the Mount of Moses from our gaze. At dawn we were facing the grim shore of the sulphur mountain. Here we were greeted by the waving of the French tricolour, which, in the monotonous grey that mantled the whole land, afforded a bright resting-place for the weary eye. According to a treaty made with the Egyptian Government, the Company are enabled to carry on their operations over 160 miles of coast, south from Cape Seit, where the Egyptian territory forms a promontory opposite the peninsula of Sinai. The coast line is similar in outline to the adjacent Gimsah, whilst, with the group of islands which lie off it, it forms the entrance of the Gulf of Suez. We now passed down the narrow channel which divides the group of islands from the mainland, and there lay before us the bluff of Gimsah, a steep mass of pure gypsum, white as chalk. This peak is about 200 feet above the level of the sea: it faces nearly south, its aspect is bare, and like all the mountains contiguous to the sea on these dreary and uninhabited coasts, it presents hardly the faintest trace of vegetation. Since July, 1867, the mines have been worked by a gang of labourers, of which twenty-six were Europeans and 300 were brought from Upper Egypt. For a time they were yielding a rich produce, which afforded the best hopes for the future; but now, like so much else in the country, have fallen into decay. The mutual intrigues and corruption of the contractors have yielded a fresh testimony on the one hand, to the continual ill-luck of the Government, which seems fated never to be able to improve the bounty of its natural resources; and on the other, to the ruthless avarice of foreigners, which is ever stopping the progress of the country. A tedious lawsuit has laid bare a whole series of scandals, discreditable alike to the directors and to the administrators of the Viceregal Government. The state of affairs, even in 1868, was melancholy enough. The Egyptian Government had contracted to supply work in the mines at a stipulated daily rate of payment. For the protection of the colony, as well as for the maintenance of discipline among the workmen, a guard of