The next ship, a Spanish one, was not to sail for three days. That was more than Waghorn could endure; he went to the captain, urged him, bribed him with fifty dollars to make it two days, instead of three, and succeeded. In eight and forty hours he was somewhat consoled for his former discouragement, to find himself at length at sea. In sixteen days he was at Alexandria, and after a rest of only five hours there, hired donkeys and was off to Rosetta. The donkeys were in the conspiracy against him, as well as the wind and the avalanches. The first day they trotted and walked along as brisk as may be, and our indefatigable traveller worked them well. It is well known that the donkey of the east is a paragon of wisdom, compared with his dunce of a brother in Europe; and upon a night's reflection, Mr. Waghorn's donkeys seem to have clearly perceived that he had no notion of easy stages, and was bent on keeping them going as fast as he could, and as long as daylight suffered. So the second day they managed to stumble, and limp, and fall down intentionally four or five times, and to put on a pitiful affectation of fatigue and weariness,--a common dodge, the drivers said, of those knowing animals. Fortunately he was soon able to dispense with the deceitful donkeys; and embarking on the Nile, undertook to navigate the boat himself, in order to take soundings and make observations in regard to the route. After brief repose at Rosetta, he set out for Cairo on a _cange_, a sort of boat of fifteen tons burthen, with two large latteen sails. The captain undertook to land him at Cairo in three days and four nights; but the boat went aground on a shoal, and after tacking for five days and nights, Waghorn lost all patience, and proceeded to his destination upon donkeys. He crossed the desert from Cairo to Suez in four days, on two of which he travelled seventy-four miles. He was thus able to keep his appointment and be at Suez by the 8th December, but there was no sign of the steamer. The wind was blowing right in her teeth; so after waiting two days, with feverish impatience, Mr. Waghorn determined to sail down the centre of the Red Sea, in an open boat, in the hope of meeting the steamer somewhere above Cossier. All the seamen of the locality held up their hands at the proposal of the mad Englishman, and tried to dissuade him. It was the opinion, he knew, of nautical authorities at the time, that the Red Sea was not navigable. But he could not rest quiet at Suez; he had important despatches to deliver; he was commissioned to inquire into the navigability of these waters; and out he would go in an open boat, let folk say what they would, and so he did.