FORTY DAYS IF THE DESERT.

A DESCRIPTION of Cairo, a visit to the Pyramids, a leisurely journey to Mount Sinai, and a rapid run to Petra to avoid the extortion of the Arabs, do not promise much of interest; and novelty seems out of the question, even although the traveller met the caravan on its pilgrimage to Mecca in the depth of the Desert. Both interest and novelty, however, are given to the much-worn subjects, by the qualities of the author. Mr. Bartlett has a graphic power of description, improved by the studies of the artist ; for the painter's training enables him to examine a land- scape with a more learned eye, and to see distinctly those features which form its character, and are only felt, not perceived, by the unartistic ob- server. He is a good traveller,—ardent and persevering in pursuit of re- markable objects, not turned aside by difficulties or privations ; he has the art of making himself at home with strange companions,—which seems to be the general case with artists, from the rambling life they lead as students of nature; at the same time, he has the traveller's disposition of not paying too much, and resisting imposition ; all which traits tend to create adventures. Mr. Bartlett also has made himself acquainted with the history of the remarkable regions he visited, as well as with the speculations touching the wanderings of the Israelites in the Desert, the delivery of the Law, and the prophecies concerning Edom ; and he brings to their discussion a rational frame of mind, equally removed from blind belief and mocking scepticism. All these qualifications, however, would not have availed him in such an exhausted field, had he not possessed a spirit and pleasantry which animate his narrative, and a judgment that prevents him from overdoing his descriptions or his disquisitions. A few quotations will support this opinion ; although some of them are not upon the freshest of subjects.

CAMEL-RIDING.

A singular and half-dreamy sensation is that of first riding a camel, the very opposite to that quickening of the pulse which comes to us on horseback. Your seat, on a broad pile of carpets, is so easy and indolent, the pace of the animal so equal and quiet,—instead of the noisy clatter of hoofs, you scarcely hear the measured and monotonous impress of the broad soft foot on the yielding sand,— the air fans you so lazily as you move along; from your lofty post your view over the Desert is so widely extended, the quiet is so intense, that you fall by degrees into a state of pleasurable reverie, mingling early ideas of the East with their almost fanciful realization. And thus the hours pass away, till a sense of phy- sical uneasiness begins to predominate, and at length becomes absorbing. It now appears that the chief and only art in camel-riding lies in the nice poising and management of the vertebral column, which seem to refuse its office, though you sustain its failing functions by .a desperate tightening of your belt. To sit quite upright for a length of time is difficult on account of your extended legs: you throw your weight alternately to the right or left, lean dangerously forward on the pummel, sit sideways, or lounge desperately backwards—all in vain. The bean sere have, for obvious reasons, decidedly the best of it in this exercise. To lose your sense of weariness, you seek to urge the animal to a trot; but a few such ex- periments suffice; fatigue is better than downright dislocation: and you resign yourself perforce to the horrible see-saw and provoking tranquillity of your weary pace, till the sun's decline enables you to descend and walk over the shining grave

MID-DAY TRAVELLING DT THE DESERT.

As the sun rose higher and higher into the cloudless sky, and the blanched surface of the Desert glared under his fiery beams, and the reflection from the glittering and heated waste dazzled the eye and seemed to pierce to the very brain, it was another matter. The camels now groan with distress; the Arabsare silent, slipping from time to time alongside the water-skins' and, with their mouths to the orifice, catching a few gulps without stopping; then burying their beads in the ample bernons, pace on again quietly—hour after hour. The water, which smacks of the leathern bottle or zemzemia in which it is contained, warm, in- sipid, and even nauseous, seems but to increase the parching thirst; the brain is clouded and paralyzed by the intolerable sultriness; and with the eyes protected by a handkerchief from the reflected glare of the sand, and swaying listlessly to

and fro, I keep at the same horrible pace along the burning track. * * *

The hot film, like the low of a kiln, now trembles over the glistening sands, and plays the most fantastic tricks with the suffering traveller, cheating his vision with an illusory supply of what his senses madly crave. Ralf .dozing, half- dreaming, as I advanced, lulled into vague reverie, the startling mirage shifting with magic play, expands in gleaming blue lakes, whose cool borders are adorned with wavinggroves, and on whose shining banks the mimic waves, with wonder- ful illusion, break in long glittering lines of transparent water—bright, fresh water, so different from the leathery decoction of the zemzemia. On our approach the vision recedes, dissolves, combines again into new forms, all fancifully beauti- ful; then slowly fades, and leaves but the burning horizon, upon which at wide intervals is seen, perhaps, a dim black speck, appearing over the rolling sandy swell like a ship far out at sea; the film of the Desert gives it gigantic dimen- sions as it approaches: it proves as it nears us to be a caravan of camels from Suez, coming along with noiseless tread,—a few laconic words are exchanged between the Arabs without stopping; in another hour it is left far be- hind, until again it disappears from vision. Thus pass the sultry and silent boars of noon. There is a terrible and triumphant power of the sun upon this wide region of sterility and death, like that of a despot over a realm blighted by his destructive sway: no trace of verdure is there but the stunted shrub, Which straggles at wide intervals about the sandy bed of some dried watercourse; no sign of living thing but the burrow of the rat, the slimy trail of the serpent, or the carcass of the camel, who makes hisgrave as well as his home in the wil- derness, met with in every stage of decay, from the moment when the vultures have just fleshed their beaks in his fallen corpse, till, stripped of every integu- ment, the wind whistles through the ghastly framework of his naked ribs, and his bones, falling asunder and bleached by heat and wind, serve to mark the ap- pointed track upon which his strength was spent.

ROCKS OF PETRA.

Here I should not omit to notice what every traveller has been struck with, and what, in fact, particularly in this range of tombs and on this side of the city, forms one of the most striking peculiarities of Petra—i mean the colouring of its rocks; which is wild, fantastic, and unique, as indeed is everything else about the place. The general tinting of the sandstone mountains envirmung the city is very fine: the broad rich red and gray tones such as the artist revels in: but, in addition, the surface of the rocks is veined after the manner of watered silk, with a most indescribable and startling variety of hues—white, saffron, orange, ver- milion, pink, crimson, and violet, in endless shades and tints; in some places forming combinations ivally beautiful; in others, grotesquely strange, like sec- tions of meat or of brawn, but so wildly thrown about the irregular surface of the crags, and so capriciously drawn in minute veins and stripes across the facades of the tombs, as infinitely to add to the marvellous and romantic singularity of this wonderful region.

CARAVAN OF MECCA.

We now proceeded to meet the body of the caravan, which was coming on at a steady pace, the attendant Bedouins generally hovering on its flanks, but some- times much in advance. First came a body of stragglers, who seemed as if they had been suddenly wafted from the suburbs of Cairo without note or preparation: a large proportion of them were tattered ragamuffins of the lowest aspect, the very offscouring of the capital, and, to all appearance, utterly unfurnished for the journey—some plodding on foot, others mounted on donkeys; women even bear- ing their children on their shoulders, the asses which carried them having pe- rished: a painfully grotesque assemblage, for it was past all question that of these miserable wretches too many must fall victims to fatigue and privation during their lengthened course. In their total want of preparation, their igno- rance of the way, and blind reliance on the providence of Allah, they strongly re- minded me of the description of those fanatic hordes who went forth on the first crusade, and who perished by thousands long ere they reached the borders of Pa- lestine. They inquired for Akaba, as those were accustomed to ask for Jerusa-

lem, supposing it always just at hand; and were astounded when we told them

they had nearly three days' journey to accomplish. Strongly contrasted with this deplorable rabble, came spurring forward detached groups of completely ap- pointed Caireen gentlemen, well mounted, well dressed, all their garments being fresh and glossy, armed to the teeth, and followed at a distance by well-laden camels, bearing comfortable tents and abundant stores: some of them, proud of their own gallant appearance and the spirit of their horses, pranced and curveted, and performed different feats of horsemanship within sight of the hodags which bore their lady-loves, throwing dust without much ceremony into the eyes of the

poorer wayfarers. • • • • The main body of the caravan advanced steadily in a compact mass, five camels in depth. In the front was the cannon used for announcing the time of halting

and starting again, on a sort of sledge drawn by three camels, harnessed in a pe- culiar manner, and each with a soldier on his back. Next, in the centre, succeeded a long line of camels bearing palanquins, or hodegs, occupied by women —a sort of tent either built up on the back of a single animal, or slung like a sedan-chair, between two of them, and varying in the splendour of its materials and gaudi- ness of its decorations with the rank of its fair occupant; some being quite ra- diant with crimson or green silk, embroidered in gold, surmounted with glitter- ing crescents, and having small windows latticed without and lined within with looking-glass: most of these, on account of the heat, were thrown open, and ad- mitted occasional peeps at the languid sleepy eyes within.

The Scriptural questions discussed in Mr. Bartlett's volume are the passage of the Red Sea, the true position of Mount Sinai, and the manner in which the Israelites were supported' during their sojourn in the Wilder- ness. As regards Sinai, Mr. Bartlett is inclined to agree with Dr. Ro• binson, and is opposed to the claims of Mount Sabel. The geological changes which have taken place in the upper part of the Red Sea, and the desert to the North of it, do not seem to have been so fully considered by previous writers as by Mr. Bartlett, who in addition to his own re- marks prints a learned memoir on the subject by Mr. Sharpe. On the

point first mooted by foreign travellers in the last century, as to the na■ tural possibility of the miracles of the Exodus, Mr. Bartlett's views are

sound : if we admit miraculous interference at all, we had better take the literal narrative. The argument of some writers, that the meteorological knowledge of Moses might enable him to foresee a peculiar wind, which, driving back the waters of the Red Sea, would enable the Jews to cross the shallows at the favourable time, leaving the Egyptians to be over- whelmed when the wind dropped and the waters returned, is a natural cause, dispensing with the superhuman altogether. The efforts to show that the existing quails and manna might have been produced in unusual quantities, do not remove the miraculous action, but shake the Scriptural narrative. In Mr. Bartlett's opinion, the production of sufficient manna from the existing trees would be quite as miraculous as the mode literally narrated in the Mosaic account.

The illustrations are excellent, as they commonly are when an intelli- gent and observing traveller is an artist and illustrates his own text :

he knows what he wants—he does as much, no more, and no less. Ac-

cordingly, Mr. Bartlett's drawings are not a mere set of views, but tree illustrations. He describes a scene, but finds that something is still wanted to eke out the force of the words, and the pencil supplies it. He enters into particulars, describing this part and that part; and each in suc- cession stands before you. You desire a key to the relative positions, and

you have it. In fact, you enter upon your reading of the travels with a practised draughtsman for your companion. The plates convey a vivid and accurate conception of the scenes they represent : the view of Cairo is ad- mirable. A considerable portion of the illustrations is devoted to the city of Petra, cat in the rock ; and nothing can be more complete than the way in which you are introduced to the strange resort of departed men in ifs general aspect by a sketchy hey, enter it through the ravine, face its first

work of architecture, pass on to its theatre, " vivoque sedilia saxo," and from a rising ground turn back and view the ruined town ; whose sym- metry of art is crumbling away, fading like a dream into the forms of nature, while the stream that has babbled on for ages resumes its winding course and mocks the silence of the desert city.