twenty-five soldiers was kept at Gimsah; this was rather a superfluity, since the Egyptian workmen, once taken into service, could not easily escape. They were hemmed in on one side by wide deserts, which could not be traversed in a day; and as for danger on the other from the Bedouins, none could be apprehended. A report about the Bedouins, which was current at Suez, could not fail to awaken my interest. The passengers of a mail steamer, which had lately foundered at the entrance of the Gulf, maintained that they had seen on the opposite mainland a body of wild men 200 strong, looking out for booty and for plunder. Assuredly by no exertions could the Bedouins collect such a force in the course of a few hours. Poor sons of the desert, I knew them better! An exhausted stomach, shrivelled up on their long wanderings till it is like an empty water-bottle, is the only voice in their naturally harmless character which could excite to violence. Give them a couple of handfuls of durra-corn, and you have made them the best of friends. Their desire for plunder is limited to the robbing of turtles’ nests, and the taking of eggs from the neighbouring islands. [Sidenote: SULPHUR WORKS AT GIMSAH.] Protected by numberless coral-reefs, the coasts of the Red Sea everywhere afford to small vessels the most comfortable harbours and anchorage. Here a short stone quay sufficed as a mole for moorage, and close behind was a grotto-like cistern in the rock, into which the water could be pumped by means of pipes connected with the reservoirs in the ship. On the narrow border of land between the foot of the rock and the sea, were erected huts of planks for the workmen, and barracks of stone for the officials of the Company. Such was the little piece of land on which the colony, composed of representatives of many a nation, prolonged its deplorable existence. Bounded in front by the dreary expanse of sea, which was rarely enlivened by a solitary sail, shut in behind by the sun-scorched gypsum, they were thus exposed to a double share of direct and reflected rays. The atmosphere in which they toiled was burdened with the stifling fumes of sulphur, and oppressed with the perpetual odour of burning petroleum; not alone the welfare, but the very existence of the colony, was dependent on the safe return of the steamer which provided them with food and drink. Whoever has lingered here can form some conception of the endurances of the poor beasts in our zoological gardens, which have been brought together from every zone, and caged in hopeless imprisonment. So monotonously and void of joy did the days of these wretched miners pass away; they led a life more gloomy than monastic, which might almost recall the first century of Christendom. Perhaps such a life belongs to the air, for it may be remembered that the renowned convents of St. Paul and St. Antony are distant but a few miles to the north-west; they are remnants of the oldest convents that