the night, and give forth cheerful sounds.
Fountains on many a marble terrace or
flower-girt walk, send forth their cooling
streams, whose rippling music lulls restless
sleepers with its silvery notes. A fairy spell
seems hanging on the city, whose teeming
thousands might have been changed, by some
sorcerer's magic, into dead blocks of marble,
so still, and hushed, and motionless the city
of the Egyptian sultans.

I am moving through one of the principal
open squares of Cairo alone, and regardless
of cautions about Nubian bravos, eunuchs'
bowstrings and sackings in the Nile. The
square is considered a fine one in Egypt; not
at all equal to those of Belgrave or Grosvenor,
though perhaps on a par with that of
Finsbury, minus the houses. There is a row of
ghostly trees on one side, an invisible line of
railings on the other. A shadowy indistinct
range of buildings along the western side,
that may be old piano-forte manufactories
or upholsterers' warerooms, with the wall of
Bunhill burial-ground skirting the remaining
frontage.

Away in one corner of this singular principal
square is a narrow outlet that teems with
hopeful promise of things as yet unseen. It
is a street evidently, though partaking much
of the dimensions of a London lane. Tall
frowning gables of strange-looking houses are
on either side, while here and there, at uncertain
distances, are suspended queer-looking
dwarfy lanterns, sending forth a foggy sort
of light, not sufficient to illumine the gloom of
an oyster-stall. The upper part of this
oriental Petticoat Lane is lit bravely by the
moon, and there, far above, may be seen the
strangest kinds of windows, all latticed and
carved like unpretending oriels in a private
gothic chapel.

Below all this moonlit trelliswork and
architecture are beetling heavy doorways and
sombre wickets barely made visible amidst
their darkness by the sickly twinkling of the
baby lanterns. The walls are thick, the
gates are massive, the bolts and locks are of
Cyclopean magnitude, and carry on their
rusty iron visages the features of dark tales
and strange adventures.

There is a noble mosque, with its stately
gilded minarets towering above the walls and
gates below, and radiant with the brightness
of the hour. Further on is a goodly building
of polished marble. The moonbeams falling
thickly on it, show how much time and skill
the craftsmen of old Egypt have lavished on
its form. It is a public fountain, where the
halt and blind may rest and quench their thirst.
Beyond it, again, adjoining a long low range
of wall and peering gables, are a suite of
baths of many-coloured marble. Beautifully
moulded by the carver's chisel, yet of less
pretensions than the fountain, as a work of
art. It stands forth grandly from the crowd
of strange fantastic dwellings that cluster
round about it.

The whole scene, with its nocturnal stillness,
its mosque, fountain, latticed windows,
and fantastic gateways, conjures up vividly
before me the legends of the Thousand and
One Nights. It seems, indeed, like a picture
cut out of that wonderful volume. Every
curious building,—each dark mysterious portal
appears as though belonging to some
portion of the Arabian Tales, peopled with
emirs, merchants, calendars, and
hunchbacked tailors.

There is a noble mansion of the Arabian
Nights' description; massive, large, full of
quaint doors and sly windows, doing their
best to see, yet not be seen. It is shaded by
lofty palms, whilst over the thick wall of the
garden and terrace may be seen the bright
flowers and verdant leaves of the pomegranate
and citron. The principal gateway is
slightly ajar, and without running too much
risk of being bowstrung, or sacked, I venture
to indulge my curiosity by peeping slily in
through the narrow aperture left by the
unclosed door. There were many lights
inside,—lanterns, torches, and flambeaux, and
by their combined light I obtain an uncertain
vision of a busy multitude within a hall
shut off from the courtyard by trellis-work
and windows. There is a sound of revelry
within; of merry voices, of stringed instruments,
of dancing feet. They are evidently
the domestic part of some establishment of
quality, making holiday to celebrate some
family event. Who can say but it may be
the wedding-night of some vizier's daughter
or son?

I could linger at the door longer yet, in
the hope of gaining insight into the inner
mysteries of this merry-making; but,
certain unpleasant twinges about the neck,
warn me of what may possibly be the result;
and, as I cannot be sure that the nightwatch
of the Cairo police will hear me in the event
of my requiring their aid, I yield to discretion,
and move away from the fascinating
gateway slowly and reluctantly.

The time, the place, and the scene before
me, conjure up the incidents related in the
early part of the adventures of Bedreddin
Hassan; where the genie and the fairy transport
that young and good-looking adventurer
from Balsora to the door of the bath at
Cairo, just in time to upset the connubial
arrangements of the Sultan's hunch-backed
groom. Who knows but this may be the
identical street, and the gate yonder through
which I have just been peeping, the
selfsame door of Schemseddin's palace, in
which Bedreddin Hassan's adventures
commenced? And it was, perhaps, not far
distant from this spot, that the terror-stricken
Bedreddin was afterwards brought, secured
in an iron-bound cage, from Damascus, under
the instant apprehension of death for the
treasonable act of omitting pepper in the
concoction of his cheesecakes. How many
more adventures may not have taken place