"On April 10, 1880, Professor W. Robertson Smith, of Aberdeen, and I, set out together with the view of visiting the Coptic convents in the Desert about the Natron Lakes to the north-west of Cairo. We were detained three days at the village of Abu-Rawásh, near the northernmost pyramid of that name, by a robbery which called for the intervention of the police. The time was not wasted. The traffic of _rakik_ (chattels) was the common topic of conversation amongst the peasants; and the settlement proved to be one of the Nilotic termini of the transport line. We subsequently ascertained that the so-called 'Pyramid Arabs' and the neighbouring hamlets, especially Kardási, were also connected with it. Kardási, indeed, had been convicted of complicity two years ago by Yacoub Artin Bey. Of course the Octroi employés were well acquainted with a traffic so lucrative. "The guide El-Haji Musá, engaged at Abu-Rawásh, succeeded in missing the way, and in nearly losing himself, by his desire to prevent the two Englishmen meeting a slave Caravan which was then expected. At the Coptic convent of Már Makárius no information was forthcoming from the monks, except that the once active traffic had been closed. But a second guide, Abd el-Aláh, of the Benú Salamáh Bedouins, gave a very different account, which was confirmed by others. The slaves are driven from the large region, popularly called Dar Wadái, and, by the inhabitants, Bargo. The season is the rainy winter, when the water-holes are full; the summer heats effectually end it. At Siwah (the Oasis of Ammon), some eighteen marches from Cairo, the chattels are driven to the Natron Lakes; men, women, children, and babes in arms forming regular caravans. If the adults refuse to walk, they are beaten; and, as a last resource in sickness, they are tied on camels' backs. At the Birket el Birdi, the easternmost of the Natron Lakes, we were shown the sweet-water pools from which the slave-gangs drink, and the places where they are halted to rest and recruit before being smuggled one by one into the capital. Finally, we heard at the Syrian convent that the last convoy of 1880 had passed in March.