This was the conscription, which nearly drove Egypt into a revolt last winter. In old times, when soldiers were wanted, men were pounced upon suddenly wherever they could be found, and marched off, leaving great grief behind; but before any dangerous excitement could be got up. This was justly considered a barbarous and inartificial method; and when, for what purposes remains a mystery, a certain levy of men was required, it was determined to proceed with regularity, and to make each district furnish its quota according to the number of inhabitants. The idea, at first sight, seems both fair and wise; and if the people could have been got to acquiesce in the necessity of their supplying soldiers in any proportion at all, would have worked very well. But as nobody in Egypt wants to shoulder a musket, as everybody has the utmost hatred and abhorrence of military service, arising partly from constitutional want of energy, but chiefly from the knowledge that the soldier is ill-paid[13] and ill-fed, and rarely, if ever, returns--we never met but one old discharged campaigner in the country--it is not surprising if the public announcement of the intentions of Government produced the greatest possible perturbation. The first impulse of the whole adult population, except those who could boast of some very undoubted claim of exemption, was to fly to the mountains; and every defile, every cavern, every catacomb, every quarry in the Libyan and Arabian chains, were soon tenanted by people running away from enlistment. Wherever we went in our excursions, we became accustomed to see lines of human beings perched like crows on the summit of seemingly inaccessible cliffs, on the look-out for the enemy in the shape of the Sheikh-el-Beled; for the task of catching and forwarding the prescribed number of "strong active young men" devolved on the civil authority, aided sometimes by that estimable rural police, the Arnaout irregular cavalry. On many occasions we surprised these poor people in their retreats; and once, when they mistook us for recruiters, were assailed with slings diverted from their original purpose, namely, that of frightening the sparrows away from the crops. Accounts reached us at several places that blood had been shed; and the affair in various ways rendered our journey somewhat melancholy. Now we came upon a large town, as Geneh, seemingly deserted by its whole population, with closed shops and silent streets; then we met a party of recruits, chained neck and neck, going to their destination; and anon we saw a crowd of women, driven to despair by the loss of son, or husband, or brother, tossing up their arms, tearing their garments, and invoking curses on their oppressors. Public opinion in all despotic countries finds utterance through the weaker sex; they dare to say what would perhaps bring condign punishment on the men; they nearly made a revolt once in Cairo under Mohammed Ali, and on the