driven from place to place either by the arrival of the fly and the lack of pasturage, or by the want of water, even so must the flocks of the Arab obey the law of necessity in a country where the burning sun and total absence of rain for nine months of the year convert the green pastures into a sandy desert. The Arabs and their herds must follow the example of the wild beasts, and live as wild and wandering a life.

3

4

2

1

5. In the absence of a fixed home, without a city or even a village that is permanent, there can be no change of custom. There is no stimulus to competition in the style of architecture that is to endure only a few months; no municipal laws suggest deficiencies that originate improvements. The Arab cannot halt in one spot longer than the pasturage will support his flocks; therefore his necessity is food for his beasts. The object of his life being fodder, he must wander in search of the ever-changing supply. His wants must be few, as the constant changes of encampment necessitate the transport of all his household goods; thus he reduces to a minimum 5 the domestic furniture and utensils. No desire for strange and fresh objects excites his mind to improvement, or alters his original habits; he must limit his baggage, not increase it; and thus with a few necessary articles he is contented. Mats for his tent, ropes manufactured with the hair of his goats and camels, pots for carrying fat; water-jars and earthenware pots or gourd-shells for containing milk; leather water-skins

1 Stimulus, spur.

2 Municipal laws, laws of cities and towns.

• Deficiencies, shortcomings. 1 Originate, give rise to. 5 A minimum, the least possible quantity.

for the desert, and sheepskin bags for his clothesthese are the requirements of the Arab. These patterns have never changed, but the water-jar of to-day is of the same form that was carried to the well by the women of thousands of years ago.

6. The conversation of the Arabs is in the exact style of the Old Testament. Should a famine afflict the country, it is expressed in the stern language of the Bible The Lord has sent a grievous famine upon the land;' or, The Lord called for a famine, and it came upon the land.' Should their cattle fall sick, it is considered to be an affliction by Divine command; should the flocks prosper and multiply particularly during one season, the prosperity is attributed to God's special interference.

7. This striking similarity to the descriptions of the Old Testament is exceedingly interesting to a traveller when residing among these curious and original people. With the Bible in our hand, and these unchanged tribes before our eyes, there is a thrilling illustration of the sacred record; the past becomes the present; the veil of three thousand years is raised, and the living picture is a witness to the exactness of the historical description. At the same time there is a light thrown upon many obscure passages of the Old Testament by the experience of the present customs and figures of speech of the Arabs, which are precisely those that were practised at the periods described. The sudden and desolating arrival of a flight of locusts, the plague, or any other unforeseen calamity, is attributed to the anger of God, and is believed to be an infliction of punishment upon the people thus visited, precisely as

the plagues of Egypt were specially inflicted upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

8. There is a fascination in the unchangeable features of the Nile regions. There are the vast pyramids that have defied time; the river upon which Moses was cradled in infancy; the same sandy deserts through which he led his people; and the watering-places where their flocks were led to drink. The wild and wandering tribes of Arabs who thousands of years ago dug out the deep wells in the wilderness, are represented by their descendants unchanged, who now draw water from the deep wells of their forefathers with the skins that have never altered their fashion. The Arabs, gathering with their goats and sheep around the wells to-day, recall the recollection of that distant time when 'Jacob went on his journey, and came into the land of the East. And he looked, and behold a well in the field and lo, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, for out of that well they watered the flocks; and a great stone was upon the well's mouth. And thither were all the flocks gathered; and they rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone again upon the well's mouth in his place.' The picture of that scene would be an illustration of Arab daily life in the Nubian deserts, where the present is the mirror of the past.

Sir S. BAKER'S Nile Tributaries, by permission of
Messrs. MACMILLAN and Co.

LUCY AND THE HAT.

1. BUT now again she gazes upon her father's hat, and the more she looks at it, the shabbier she thinks it. In truth, she could not think it shabbier than it really was; and she also remembered that Philip, her brother, made game of it yesterday—only yesterday. Her father must have a new hat.

2. She was a privileged person. She might go into her father's little study whenever she would. If he were busy he would gently send her out again, but most often he took her upon his knee, and cheered his mind with a little prattling before he let her go. So she made no scruple of opening his study door, and there she found him with an open drawer before him. The drawer, in fact, was that in which he kept his money; which money (strange employment for him to be caught in) he was counting and recounting over and over. The treasure was made up of pieces but small in value-shillings, sixpences, pence and halfpence. He sighed as he gathered the tiny heap in his hand; and then, shuffling it into the farthest division of the drawer, he shut it, and looked up with-

'And what did you come for, my little girl?'

3. She had the hat in her hand.

Papa, I am come to talk to you about your hat. 'Well, child! But you haven't brushed it, Lucy. You are a little sloven. I thought you would have made it quite spruce by this time.'

'Mrs. Alworthy says it is not brushable.'

'Nonsense of Mrs. Alworthy! It looks bad, to be sure,' said he, regarding it with a queer smile; ‘and

how it is to last me six months longer may be a question to be asked, but it must do for the present, my love.'

4. ‘Oh, papa! but Alworthy, and Philip, and everybody say it is so shabby.'

'I am sorry for that.'

'Philip says he should be quite ashamed to walk out with such a hat.'

Does he? And does Mrs. Alworthy?'

'No, she never said so; but Philip does, over and over.'

'And are you ashamed, Lucy?'

'Why, no; but '-and the colour rose to her olive cheek-'I wish you would buy a new hat. Do, dear papa, do.'

'But if I have no money to buy one?'.

'Why, papa, but you have some money. You were counting a great big heap of money, as big as this, when I came into the room.'

'But suppose I want the money for other things?' 'Oh! but what other things? Nothing shows a gentleman so much as a hat. Philip says

'What does Philip say?'

'He says-oh, papa! it's so shocking!-that people call you stingy, and think you mean and a miser, for nobody else would dress so unlike a gentleman. That's what he says, papa, and it makes me almost cry to hear him.'

5. 'Come here, my little Lucy (for you look ready, at all events, to cry now), and sit down upon your father's knee, and let us talk about it. Does my child say that everybody cries shame upon her father because he does not get himself a new hat? And do they